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 INTRODUCTION

The Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting

Frankenstein for one of their series, expressed a wish that I
should furnish them with some account of the origin of the
story. I am the more willing to comply, because I shall thus
give a general answer to the question, so very frequently
asked me—“How I, when a young girl, came to think of, and
to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?” It is true that I am
very averse to bringing myself forward in print; but as my
account will only appear as an appendage to a former
production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have
connection with my authorship alone, I can scarcely accuse
myself of a personal intrusion.
It is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of
distinguished literary celebrity, I should very early in life
have thought of writing. As a child I scribbled; and my
favourite pastime, during the hours given me for recreation,
was to “write stories.” Still I had a dearer pleasure than this,
which was the formation of castles in the air—the indulging
in waking dreams—the following up trains of thought, which
had for their subject the formation of a succession of
imaginary incidents. My dreams were at once more fantastic
and agreeable than my writings. In the latter I was a close
imitator—rather doing as others had done, than putting
down the suggestions of my own mind. What I wrote was
intended at least for one other eye—my childhood’s
companion and friend; but my dreams were all my own; I
accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when
annoyed—my dearest pleasure when free.
I lived principally in the country as a girl, and passed a
considerable time in Scotland. I made occasional visits to
the more picturesque parts; but my habitual residence was
on the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near
Dundee. Blank and dreary on retrospection I call them; they
were not so to me then. They were the eyry of freedom, and
the pleasant region where unheeded I could commune with
the creatures of my fancy. I wrote then—but in a most
commonplace style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds
belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the
woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the
airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered. I did
not make myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to
me too commonplace an affair as regarded myself. I could
not figure to myself that romantic woes or wonderful events
would ever be my lot; but I was not confined to my own
identity, and I could people the hours with creations far
more interesting to me at that age, than my own sensations.
After this my life became busier, and reality stood in place
of fiction. My husband, however, was from the first, very
anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage,
and enrol myself on the page of fame. He was forever
inciting me to obtain literary reputation, which even on my
own part I cared for then, though since I have become
infinitely indifferent to it. At this time he desired that I
should write, not so much with the idea that I could produce
anything worthy of notice, but that he might himself judge
how far I possessed the promise of better things hereafter.
Still I did nothing. Travelling, and the cares of a family,
occupied my time; and study, in the way of reading, or
improving my ideas in communication with his far more
cultivated mind, was all of literary employment that
engaged my attention.
 In the summer of 1816, we visited Switzerland, and
became the neighbours of Lord Byron. At first we spent our
pleasant hours on the lake, or wandering on its shores; and
Lord Byron, who was writing the third canto of Childe Harold,
was the only one among us who put his thoughts upon
paper. These, as he brought them successively to us, clothed
in all the light and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp as
divine the glories of heaven and earth, whose influences we
partook with him.
But it proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain
often confined us for days to the house. Some volumes of
ghost stories, translated from the German into French, fell
into our hands. There was the History of the Inconstant
Lover, who, when he thought to clasp the bride to whom he
had pledged his vows, found himself in the arms of the pale
ghost of her whom he had deserted. There was the tale of
the sinful founder of his race, whose miserable doom it was
to bestow the kiss of death on all the younger sons of his
fated house, just when they reached the age of promise. His
gigantic, shadowy form, clothed like the ghost in Hamlet, in
complete armour, but with the beaver up, was seen at
midnight, by the moon’s fitful beams, to advance slowly
along the gloomy avenue. The shape was lost beneath the
shadow of the castle walls; but soon a gate swung back, a
step was heard, the door of the chamber opened, and he
advanced to the couch of the blooming youths, cradled in
healthy sleep. Eternal sorrow sat upon his face as he bent
down and kissed the forehead of the boys, who from that
hour withered like flowers snapt upon the stalk. I have not
seen these stories since then; but their incidents are as fresh
in my mind as if I had read them yesterday.
“We will each write a ghost story,” said Lord Byron; and his
proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble
author began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the
end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley, more apt to embody
ideas and sentiments in the radiance of brilliant imagery,
and in the music of the most melodious verse that adorns
our language, than to invent the machinery of a story,
commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life.
Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed
lady, who was so punished for peeping through a keyhole—
what to see I forget—something very shocking and wrong of
course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than
the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do
with her, and was obliged to despatch her to the tomb of the
Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted. The
illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose,
speedily relinquished their uncongenial task.
I busied myself to think of a story—a story to rival those
which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to
the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling
horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to
curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I
did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be
unworthy of its name. I thought and pondered—vainly. I felt
that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest
misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our
anxious invocations. Have you thought of a story? I was
asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply
with a mortifying negative.
Everything must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean
phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something
that went before. The Hindus give the world an elephant to
support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a
tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not
consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the
materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give
form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into
being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and
invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination,
we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and
his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the
capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and
fashioning ideas suggested to it.
Many and long were the conversations between Lord
Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent
listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines
were discussed, and among others the nature of the
principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its
ever being discovered and communicated. They talked of
the experiments of Dr. Darwin, (I speak not of what the
Doctor really did, or said that he did, but, as more to my
purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been done
by him,) who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case,
till by some extraordinary means it began to move with
voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given.
Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated; galvanism had given
token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a
creature might be manufactured, brought together, and
endued with vital warmth.
Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour
had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed my
head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to
think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me,
gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a
vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw—
with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale
student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had
put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched
out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine,
show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.
Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the
effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous
mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would
terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious
handywork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself,
the slight spark of life which he had communicated would
fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect
animation, would subside into dead matter; and he might
sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would
quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse
which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps;
but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold the horrid
thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains, and
looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.
I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind,
that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to
exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities
around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the
closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and
the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps
were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous
phantom; still it haunted me. I must try to think of
something else. I recurred to my ghost story—my tiresome
unlucky ghost story! O! if I could only contrive one which
would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened
that night!
Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in
upon me. “I have found it! What terrified me will terrify
others; and I need only describe the spectre which had
haunted my midnight pillow.” On the morrow I announced
that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the
words, It was on a dreary night of November, making only a
transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.
At first I thought but of a few pages—of a short tale; but
Shelley urged me to develop the idea at greater length. I
certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor
scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but
for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in
which it was presented to the world. From this declaration I
must except the preface. As far as I can recollect, it was
entirely written by him.
And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth
and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring
of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which
found no true echo in my heart. Its several pages speak of
many a walk, many a drive, and many a conversation, when
I was not alone; and my companion was one who, in this
world, I shall never see more. But this is for myself; my
readers have nothing to do with these associations.
I will add but one word as to the alterations I have made.
They are principally those of style. I have changed no
portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or
circumstances. I have mended the language where it was so
bald as to interfere with the interest of the narrative; and
these changes occur almost exclusively in the beginning of
the first volume. Throughout they are entirely confined to
such parts as are mere adjuncts to the story, leaving the
core and substance of it untouched.

M. W. S.
London, October 15, 1831.
 PREFACE

The event on which this fiction is founded, has been

supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological
writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall
not be supposed as according the remotest degree of serious
faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis
of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely
weaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which
the interest of the story depends is exempt from the
disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment. It
was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it
develops; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords
a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of
human passions more comprehensive and commanding than
any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield.
I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the
elementary principles of human nature, while I have not
scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. The Iliad, the
tragic poetry of Greece—Shakespeare, in The Tempest, and
Midsummer Night’s Dream—and most especially Milton, in
Paradise Lost, conform to this rule; and the most humble
novelist, who seeks to confer or receive amusement from his
labours, may, without presumption, apply to prose fiction a
licence, or rather a rule, from the adoption of which so many
exquisite combinations of human feeling have resulted in
the highest specimens of poetry.
The circumstance on which my story rests was suggested
in casual conversation. It was commenced partly as a source
of amusement, and partly as an expedient for exercising any
untried resources of mind. Other motives were mingled with
these, as the work proceeded. I am by no means indifferent
to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies exist in
the sentiments or characters it contains shall affect the
reader; yet my chief concern in this respect has been limited
to the avoiding the enervating effects of the novels of the
present day, and to the exhibition of the amiableness of
domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.
The opinions which naturally spring from the character and
situation of the hero are by no means to be conceived as
existing always in my own conviction; nor is any inference
justly to be drawn from the following pages as prejudicing
any philosophical doctrine of whatever kind.
It is a subject also of additional interest to the author, that
this story was begun in the majestic region where the scene
is principally laid, and in society which cannot cease to be
regretted. I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs of
Geneva. The season was cold and rainy, and in the evenings
we crowded around a blazing wood fire, and occasionally
amused ourselves with some German stories of ghosts,
which happened to fall into our hands. These tales excited in
us a playful desire of imitation. Two other friends (a tale from
the pen of one of whom would be far more acceptable to the
public than anything I can ever hope to produce) and myself
agreed to write each a story, founded on some supernatural
occurrence.
The weather, however, suddenly became serene; and my
two friends left me on a journey among the Alps, and lost, in
the magnificent scenes which they present, all memory of
their ghostly visions. The following tale is the only one which
has been completed.

MARLOW, SEPTEMBER, 1817.

 TO
WILLIAM GODWIN,
AUTHOR OF POLITICAL JUSTICE, CALEB WILLIAMS, ETC.,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.
“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”

PARADISE LOST, X, 743–45

 FRANKENSTEIN
OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS
 LETTER I

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the

commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded
with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday; and my
first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare, and
increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London; and as I walk in the
streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play
upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves, and fills me with
delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which
has travelled from the regions towards which I am
advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.
Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day dreams become
more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the
pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself
to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight.
There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible; its broad disk just
skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour.
There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in
preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished;
and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land
surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto
discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and
features may be without example, as the phenomena of the
heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered
solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal
light? I may there discover the wondrous power which
attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial
observations, that require only this voyage to render their
seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my
ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never
before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted
by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are
sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death, and to
induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a
child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday
mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But,
supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot
contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all
mankind to the last generation, by discovering a passage
near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present
so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret
of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected
by an undertaking such as mine.
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I
began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an
enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven; for nothing
contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady
purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual
eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my
early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the
various voyages which have been made in the prospect of
arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which
surround the pole. You may remember, that a history of all
the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the
whole of our good uncle Thomas’s library. My education was
neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These
volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity
with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child,
on learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden
my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
 These visions faded when I perused, for the first time,
those poets whose effusions entranced my soul, and lifted it
to heaven. I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a
Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might
obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and
Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with
my failure, and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But
just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my
thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
Six years have passed since I resolved on my present
undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from
which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I
commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied
the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I
voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I
often worked harder than the common sailors during the
day, and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics,
the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical
science from which a naval adventurer might derive the
greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as
an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself
to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud, when my
captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel, and
entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness; so
valuable did he consider my services.
And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish
some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease
and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that
wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice
would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my
resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are
often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and
difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all
my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of
others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are
failing.
 This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia.
They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is
pleasant, and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of
an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive, if you are
wrapped in furs—a dress which I have already adopted; for
there is a great difference between walking the deck and
remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise
prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. I
have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between
St. Petersburgh and Archangel.
I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three
weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can
easily be done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to
engage as many sailors as I think necessary among those
who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to
sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah,
dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed,
many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you
and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.
Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower
down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again and
again testify my gratitude for all your love and kindness.

Your affectionate brother,

R. WALTON.
 LETTER II

To Mrs. Saville, England.

Archangel, 28th March, 17—.

How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by

frost and snow; yet a second step is taken towards my
enterprise. I have hired a vessel, and am occupied in
collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged,
appear to be men on whom I can depend, and are certainly
possessed of dauntless courage.
But I have one want which I have never yet been able to
satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as
a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: when I am
glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none
to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no
one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit
my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium
for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a
man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would reply
to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I
bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me,
gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as
of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to
approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair
the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution,
and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to
me that I am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my
life I ran wild on a common, and read nothing but our uncle
Thomas’s books of voyages. At that age I became
acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country;
but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to
derive its most important benefits from such a conviction,
that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with
more languages than that of my native country. Now I am
twenty-eight, and am in reality more illiterate than many
schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more, and
that my day dreams are more extended and magnificent;
but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly
need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise
me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour
to regulate my mind.
Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no
friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel,
among merchants and seamen. Yet some feelings, unallied
to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged
bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful
courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory: or
rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of
advancement in his profession. He is an Englishman, and in
the midst of national and professional prejudices,
unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest
endowments of humanity. I first became acquainted with
him on board a whale vessel: finding that he was
unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my
enterprise.
The master is a person of an excellent disposition, and is
remarkable in the ship for his gentleness and the mildness
of his discipline. This circumstance, added to his well known
integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to
engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent
under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the
groundwork of my character, that I cannot overcome an
intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board
ship: I have never believed it to be necessary; and when I
heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart,
and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt
myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his
services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner,
from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This,
briefly, is his story. Some years ago, he loved a young
Russian lady, of moderate fortune; and having amassed a
considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl
consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the
destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and,
throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her,
confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that
he was poor, and that her father would never consent to the
union. My generous friend reassured the suppliant, and on
being informed of the name of her lover, instantly
abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with
his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder
of his life; but he bestowed the whole on his rival, together
with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock, and
then himself solicited the young woman’s father to consent
to her marriage with her lover. But the old man decidedly
refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend; who,
when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country,
nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was
married according to her inclinations. “What a noble fellow!”
you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated:
he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness
attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more
astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which
otherwise he would command.
Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little, or because
I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never
know, that I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as
fixed as fate; and my voyage is only now delayed until the
weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been
dreadfully severe; but the spring promises well, and it is
considered as a remarkably early season; so that perhaps I
may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly:
you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and
considerateness, whenever the safety of others is committed
to my care.
I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near
prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate
to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half
pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to
depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to “the land of
mist and snow”; but I shall kill no albatross, therefore do not
be alarmed for my safety, or if I should come back to you as
worn and woful as the “Ancient Mariner”? You will smile at
my allusion; but I will disclose a secret. I have often
attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for,
the dangerous mysteries of ocean, to that production of the
most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at
work in my soul, which I do not understand. I am practically
industrious—painstaking;—a workman to execute with
perseverance and labour:—but besides this, there is a love
for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in
all my projects, which hurries me out of the common
pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions
I am about to explore.
But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you
again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned
by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not
expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse
of the picture. Continue for the present to write to me by
every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some
occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. I
love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should
you never hear from me again.

Your affectionate brother,

ROBERT WALTON.
 LETTER III

To Mrs. Saville, England.

July 7th, 17—.

My dear sister—I write a few lines in haste, to say that I am

safe, and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach
England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage
from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my
native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good
spirits: my men are bold, and apparently firm of purpose;
nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us,
indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are
advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already
reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of summer,
and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales,
which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so
ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree of renovating
warmth which I had not expected.
No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a
figure in a letter. One or two stiff gales, and the springing of
a leak, are accidents which experienced navigators scarcely
remember to record; and I shall be well content if nothing
worse happen to us during our voyage.
Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured, that for my own
sake, as well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I
will be cool, persevering, and prudent.
But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not?
Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless
seas: the very stars themselves being witnesses and
testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the
untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the
determined heart and resolved will of man?
My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I
must finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister!

Most affectionately yours,

R. W.
 LETTER IV

To Mrs. Saville, England.

August 5th, 17—.

So strange an accident has happened to us, that I cannot

forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you
will see me before these papers can come into your
possession.
Last Monday (July 31st), we were nearly surrounded by ice,
which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the
sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat
dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a
very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some
change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.
About two o’clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld,
stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of
ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades
groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with
anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted
our attention, and diverted our solicitude from our own
situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and
drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of
half a mile: a being which had the shape of a man, but
apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge, and guided
the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller
with our telescopes, until he was lost among the distant
inequalities of the ice.
 This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were,
as we believed, many hundred miles from any land; but this
apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in reality, so
distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it was
impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with
the greatest attention.
About two hours after this occurrence, we heard the
ground sea; and before night the ice broke, and freed our
ship. We, however, lay to until the morning, fearing to
encounter in the dark those large loose masses which float
about after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time
to rest for a few hours.
In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went
upon deck, and found all the sailors busy on one side of the
vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was, in
fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had
drifted towards us in the night, on a large fragment of ice.
Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being
within it, whom the sailors were persuading to enter the
vessel. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a
savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a
European. When I appeared on deck, the master said, “Here
is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish on the
open sea.”
On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English,
although with a foreign accent. “Before I come on board your
vessel,” said he, “will you have the kindness to inform me
whither you are bound?”
You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a
question addressed to me from a man on the brink of
destruction, and to whom I should have supposed that my
vessel would have been a resource which he would not have
exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can
afford. I replied, however, that we were on a voyage of
discovery towards the northern pole.
 Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied, and consented to
come on board. Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the
man who thus capitulated for his safety, your surprise would
have been boundless. His limbs were nearly frozen, and his
body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never
saw a man in so wretched a condition. We attempted to
carry him into the cabin; but as soon as he had quitted the
fresh air, he fainted. We accordingly brought him back to the
deck, and restored him to animation by rubbing him with
brandy, and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. As soon
as he showed signs of life we wrapped him up in blankets,
and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By
slow degrees he recovered, and ate a little soup, which
restored him wonderfully.
Two days passed in this manner before he was able to
speak; and I often feared that his sufferings had deprived
him of understanding. When he had in some measure
recovered, I removed him to my own cabin, and attended on
him as much as my duty would permit. I never saw a more
interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression
of wildness, and even madness; but there are moments
when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him, or
does him any the most trifling service, his whole
countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of
benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But
he is generally melancholy and despairing; and sometimes
he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes
that oppresses him.
When my guest was a little recovered, I had great trouble
to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand
questions; but I would not allow him to be tormented by
their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose
restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once,
however, the lieutenant asked, Why he had come so far
upon the ice in so strange a vehicle?
 His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the
deepest gloom; and he replied, “To seek one who fled from
me.”
“And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same
fashion?”
“Yes.”
“Then I fancy we have seen him; for the day before we
picked you up, we saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a
man in it, across the ice.”
This aroused the stranger’s attention; and he asked a
multitude of questions concerning the route which the
dæmon, as he called him, had pursued. Soon after, when he
was alone with me, he said, “I have, doubtless, excited your
curiosity, as well as that of these good people; but you are
too considerate to make enquiries.”
“Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and
inhuman in me to trouble you with any inquisitiveness of
mine.”
“And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous
situation; you have benevolently restored me to life.”
Soon after this he enquired if I thought that the breaking
up of the ice had destroyed the other sledge? I replied, that I
could not answer with any degree of certainty; for the ice
had not broken until near midnight, and the traveller might
have arrived at a place of safety before that time; but of this
I could not judge.
From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying
frame of the stranger. He manifested the greatest eagerness
to be upon deck, to watch for the sledge which had before
appeared; but I have persuaded him to remain in the cabin,
for he is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the
atmosphere. I have promised that someone should watch for
him, and give him instant notice if any new object should
appear in sight.
Such is my journal of what relates to this strange
occurrence up to the present day. The stranger has gradually
improved in health, but is very silent, and appears uneasy
when anyone except myself enters his cabin. Yet his
manners are so conciliating and gentle, that the sailors are
all interested in him, although they have had very little
communication with him. For my own part, I begin to love
him as a brother; and his constant and deep grief fills me
with sympathy and compassion. He must have been a noble
creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so
attractive and amiable.
I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should
find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man
who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should
have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my
heart.
I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at
intervals, should I have any fresh incidents to record.

August 13th, 17—.

My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at

once my admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree.
How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery,
without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle, yet
so wise; his mind is so cultivated; and when he speaks,
although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they
flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.
He is now much recovered from his illness, and is
continually on the deck, apparently watching for the sledge
that preceded his own. Yet, although unhappy, he is not so
utterly occupied by his own misery, but that he interests
himself deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently
conversed with me on mine, which I have communicated to
him without disguise. He entered attentively into all my
arguments in favour of my eventual success, and into every
minute detail of the measures I had taken to secure it. I was
easily led by the sympathy which he evinced, to use the
language of my heart; to give utterance to the burning
ardour of my soul; and to say, with all the fervour that
warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my
existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my
enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to
pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought;
for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the
elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread
over my listener’s countenance. At first I perceived that he
tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before his
eyes; and my voice quivered and failed me, as I beheld tears
trickle fast from between his fingers—a groan burst from his
heaving breast. I paused;—at length he spoke, in broken
accents:—“Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have
you drank also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me—let me
reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”
Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my
curiosity; but the paroxysm of grief that had seized the
stranger overcame his weakened powers, and many hours of
repose and tranquil conversation were necessary to restore
his composure.
Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he
appeared to despise himself for being the slave of passion;
and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he led me again to
converse concerning myself personally. He asked me the
history of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told: but it
awakened various trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of
finding a friend—of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy
with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot; and
expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little
happiness, who did not enjoy this blessing.
“I agree with you,” replied the stranger; “we are
unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser,
better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do
not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty
natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human
creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting
friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and
have no cause for despair. But I—I have lost everything, and
cannot begin life anew.”
As he said this, his countenance became expressive of a
calm settled grief, that touched me to the heart. But he was
silent, and presently retired to his cabin.
Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply
than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea,
and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems
still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such
a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be
overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired
into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit, that has a halo
around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.
Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this
divine wanderer? You would not, if you saw him. You have
been tutored and refined by books and retirement from the
world, and you are, therefore, somewhat fastidious; but this
only renders you the more fit to appreciate the extraordinary
merits of this wonderful man. Sometimes I have
endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he
possesses, that elevates him so immeasurably above any
other person I ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive
discernment; a quick but never-failing power of judgment; a
penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for
clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression,
and a voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing
music.

August 19th, 17—.

Yesterday the stranger said to me, “You may easily perceive,
Captain Walton, that I have suffered great and unparalleled
misfortunes. I had determined, at one time, that the memory
of these evils should die with me; but you have won me to
alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom,
as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of
your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has
been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be
useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the
same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which
have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce
an apt moral from my tale; one that may direct you if you
succeed in your undertaking, and console you in case of
failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually
deemed marvellous. Were we among the tamer scenes of
nature, I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your
ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild
and mysterious regions, which would provoke the laughter
of those unacquainted with the ever-varied powers of
nature:—nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its
series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it
is composed.”
You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the
offered communication; yet I could not endure that he
should renew his grief by a recital of his misfortunes. I felt
the greatest eagerness to hear the promised narrative,
partly from curiosity, and partly from a strong desire to
ameliorate his fate, if it were in my power. I expressed these
feelings in my answer.
“I thank you,” he replied, “for your sympathy, but it is
useless; my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event,
and then I shall repose in peace. I understand your feeling,”
continued he, perceiving that I wished to interrupt him; “but
you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to
name you; nothing can alter my destiny: listen to my
history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is
determined.”
He then told me, that he would commence his narrative
the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew
from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night,
when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to
record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has
related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least
make notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the
greatest pleasure: but to me, who know him, and who hear it
from his own lips, with what interest and sympathy shall I
read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my
task, his full-toned voice swells in my ears; his lustrous eyes
dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his
thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his
face are irradiated by the soul within. Strange and harrowing
must be his story; frightful the storm which embraced the
gallant vessel on its course, and wrecked it—thus!
 CHAPTER I

I am by birth a Genevese; and my family is one of the most

distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for
many years counsellors and syndics; and my father had
filled several public situations with honour and reputation.
He was respected by all who knew him, for his integrity and
indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his
younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his
country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his
marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he
became a husband and the father of a family.
As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his
character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of his
most intimate friends was a merchant, who, from a
flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into
poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud
and unbending disposition, and could not bear to live in
poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had
formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence.
Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable
manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of
Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My
father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship, and was
deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate
circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led
his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that
united them. He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him
out, with the hope of persuading him to begin the world
again through his credit and assistance.
Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself;
and it was ten months before my father discovered his
abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened to the
house, which was situated in a mean street, near the Reuss.
But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed
him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from
the wreck of his fortunes; but it was sufficient to provide him
with sustenance for some months, and in the mean time he
hoped to procure some respectable employment in a
merchant’s house. The interval was, consequently, spent in
inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling,
when he had leisure for reflection; and at length it took so
fast hold of his mind, that at the end of three months he lay
on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion.
His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness;
but she saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly
decreasing, and that there was no other prospect of support.
But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon
mould; and her courage rose to support her in her adversity.
She procured plain work; she plaited straw; and by various
means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to
support life.
Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew
worse; her time was more entirely occupied in attending
him; her means of subsistence decreased; and in the tenth
month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan
and a beggar. This last blow overcame her; and she knelt by
Beaufort’s coffin, weeping bitterly, when my father entered
the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor
girl, who committed herself to his care; and after the
interment of his friend, he conducted her to Geneva, and
placed her under the protection of a relation. Two years after
this event Caroline became his wife.
 There was a considerable difference between the ages of
my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them
only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense
of justice in my father’s upright mind, which rendered it
necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly.
Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-
discovered unworthiness of one beloved, and so was
disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a
show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my
mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for
it was inspired by reverence for her virtues, and a desire to
be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the
sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible
grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield
to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her,
as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every
rougher wind, and to surround her with all that could tend to
excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind.
Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant
spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through.
During the two years that had elapsed previous to their
marriage my father had gradually relinquished all his public
functions; and immediately after their union they sought the
pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and
interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as
a restorative for her weakened frame.
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest
child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied
them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only
child. Much as they were attached to each other, they
seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very
mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender
caresses, and my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while
regarding me, are my first recollections. I was their plaything
and their idol, and something better—their child, the
innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by
Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it
was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery,
according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this
deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to
which they had given life, added to the active spirit of
tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that
while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson
of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by
a silken cord, that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to
me.
For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much
desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single
offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an
excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week
on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent
disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor.
This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a
necessity, a passion—remembering what she had suffered,
and how she had been relieved—for her to act in her turn
the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks
a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice, as
being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-
clothed children gathered about it, spoke of penury in its
worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself
to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this
abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent
down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five
hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted
my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a different
stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants;
this child was thin, and very fair. Her hair was the brightest
living gold, and, despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed
to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear
and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the
moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and
sweetness, that none could behold her without looking on
her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and
bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.
The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes
of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly
communicated her history. She was not her child, but the
daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a
German, and had died on giving her birth. The infant had
been placed with these good people to nurse: they were
better off then. They had not been long married, and their
eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was
one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique
glory of Italy—one among the schiavi ognor frementi, who
exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He
became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died, or
still lingered in the dungeons of Austria, was not known. His
property was confiscated, his child became an orphan and a
beggar. She continued with her foster parents, and bloomed
in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-
leaved brambles.
When my father returned from Milan, he found playing
with me in the hall of our villa, a child fairer than pictured
cherub—a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her
looks, and whose form and motions were lighter than the
chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained.
With his permission my mother prevailed on her rustic
guardians to yield their charge to her. They were fond of the
sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them;
but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and
want, when Providence afforded her such powerful
protection. They consulted their village priest, and the result
was, that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my
parents’ house—my more than sister—the beautiful and
adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures.
Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost
reverential attachment with which all regarded her became,
while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening
previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had
said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor—
tomorrow he shall have it.” And when, on the morrow, she
presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with
childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally, and
looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and
cherish. All praises bestowed on her, I received as made to a
possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the
name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the
kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than
sister, since till death she was to be mine only.
 CHAPTER II

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year

difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers
to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul
of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that
subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together.
Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated
disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more
intense application, and was more deeply smitten with the
thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the
aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and
wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home—the
sublime shapes of the mountains; the changes of the
seasons; tempest and calm; the silence of winter, and the
life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she found ample
scope for admiration and delight. While my companion
contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the
magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in
investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret
which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn
the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they
were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can
remember.
On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my
parents gave up entirely their wandering life, and fixed
themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in
Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of
the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from
the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of
my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my
temper to avoid a crowd, and to attach myself fervently to a
few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my schoolfellows in
general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest
friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of
a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and
fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger, for
its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and
romance. He composed heroic songs, and began to write
many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He
tried to make us act plays, and to enter into masquerades, in
which the characters were drawn from the heroes of
Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the
chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy
sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.
No human being could have passed a happier childhood
than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of
kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the
tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the
agents and creators of all the many delights which we
enjoyed. When I mingled with other families, I distinctly
discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude
assisted the development of filial love.
My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions
vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were
turned, not towards childish pursuits, but to an eager desire
to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess
that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of
governments, nor the politics of various states, possessed
attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth
that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward
substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and the
mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my enquiries
were directed to the metaphysical, or, in its highest sense,
the physical secrets of the world.
 Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the
moral relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues
of heroes, and the actions of men, were his theme; and his
hope and his dream was to become one among those whose
names are recorded in story, as the gallant and adventurous
benefactors of our species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth
shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home.
Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet
glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and
animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and
attract: I might have become sullen in my study, rough
through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to
subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And
Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of
Clerval?—yet he might not have been so perfectly humane,
so thoughtful in his generosity—so full of kindness and
tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had
she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence,
and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring
ambition.
I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of
childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and
changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into
gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing
the picture of my early days, I also record those events
which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery: for
when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion,
which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a
mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources;
but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in
its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.
Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my
fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts
which led to my predilection for that science. When I was
thirteen years of age, we all went on a party of pleasure to
the baths near Thonon: the inclemency of the weather
obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house
I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa.
I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to
demonstrate, and the wonderful facts which he relates, soon
changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to
dawn upon my mind; and, bounding with joy, I
communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked
carelessly at the titlepage of my book, and said, “Ah!
Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time
upon this; it is sad trash.”
If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to
explain to me, that the principles of Agrippa had been
entirely exploded, and that a modern system of science had
been introduced, which possessed much greater powers
than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were
chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical;
under such circumstances, I should certainly have thrown
Agrippa aside, and have contented my imagination, warmed
as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former
studies. It is even possible, that the train of my ideas would
never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.
But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by
no means assured me that he was acquainted with its
contents; and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.
When I returned home, my first care was to procure the
whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and
Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these
writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known
to few beside myself. I have described myself as always
having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the
secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and
wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always
came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir
Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child
picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of
truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural
philosophy with whom I was acquainted, appeared even to
my boy’s apprehensions, as tyros engaged in the same
pursuit.
The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him,
and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most
learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially
unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments
were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect,
anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final
cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were
utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications
and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from
entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I
had repined.
But here were books, and here were men who had
penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all
that they averred, and I became their disciple. It may appear
strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century;
but while I followed the routine of education in the schools
of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self taught with regard
to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I
was left to struggle with a child’s blindness, added to a
student’s thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my
new preceptors, I entered with the greatest diligence into
the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life;
but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth
was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the
discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame,
and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!
Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or
devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite
authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if
my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the
failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake, than to a
want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time
I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an
unadept, a thousand contradictory theories, and floundering
desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge,
guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till
an accident again changed the current of my ideas.
When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our
house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and
terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the
mountains of Jura; and the thunder burst at once with
frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I
remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with
curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I
beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak,
which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon
as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared,
and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited
it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a
singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but
entirely reduced to thin ribands of wood. I never beheld
anything so utterly destroyed.
Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious
laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research
in natural philosophy was with us, and, excited by this
catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory
which he had formed on the subject of electricity and
galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me.
All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius
Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my
imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these
men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It
seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known.
All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew
despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind, which we
are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up
my former occupations; set down natural history and all its
progeny as a deformed and abortive creation; and
entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science,
which could never even step within the threshold of real
knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the
mathematics, and the branches of study appertaining to
that science, as being built upon secure foundations, and so
worthy of my consideration.
Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such
slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I
look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous
change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion
of the guardian angel of my life—the last effort made by the
spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then
hanging in the stars, and ready to envelope me. Her victory
was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of
soul, which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and
latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be
taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness
with their disregard.
It was a strong effort of the spirit of good; but it was
ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws
had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.
 CHAPTER III

When I had attained the age of seventeen, my parents

resolved that I should become a student at the university of
Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva;
but my father thought it necessary, for the completion of my
education, that I should be made acquainted with other
customs than those of my native country. My departure was
therefore fixed at an early date; but, before the day resolved
upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred—
an omen, as it were, of my future misery.
Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was
severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her
illness, many arguments had been urged to persuade my
mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had, at first,
yielded to our entreaties; but when she heard that the life of
her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her
anxiety. She attended her sick bed—her watchful attentions
triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth
was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were
fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened;
her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms,
and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the
worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of
this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands
of Elizabeth and myself:—“My children,” she said, “my
firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the
prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the
consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must
supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I
am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been,
is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts
befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to
death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another
world.”
She died calmly; and her countenance expressed affection
even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those
whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil; the
void that presents itself to the soul; and the despair that is
exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind
can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and
whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have
departed forever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can
have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so
familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to
be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but
when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then
the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has
not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? and
why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must
feel? The time at length arrives, when grief is rather an
indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon
the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not
banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which
we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the
rest, and learn to think ourselves fortunate, whilst one
remains whom the spoiler has not seized.
My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by
these events, was now again determined upon. I obtained
from my father a respite of some weeks. It appeared to me
sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the
house of mourning, and to rush into the thick of life. I was
new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was
unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me;
and, above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some
degree consoled.
She indeed veiled her grief, and strove to act the
comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life, and assumed
its duties with courage and zeal. She devoted herself to
those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and
cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when
she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon
us. She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to
make us forget.
The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent
the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade
his father to permit him to accompany me, and to become
my fellow student; but in vain. His father was a narrow-
minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations
and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of
being debarred from a liberal education. He said little; but
when he spoke, I read in his kindling eye and in his
animated glance a restrained but firm resolve, not to be
chained to the miserable details of commerce.
We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each
other, nor persuade ourselves to say the word “Farewell!” It
was said; and we retired under the pretence of seeking
repose, each fancying that the other was deceived: but
when at morning’s dawn I descended to the carriage which
was to convey me away, they were all there—my father
again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my
Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often,
and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate
and friend.
I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away,
and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had
ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually
engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was
now alone. In the university, whither I was going, I must form
my own friends, and be my own protector. My life had
hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic; and this
had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I
loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were “old
familiar faces;” but I believed myself totally unfitted for the
company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I
commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and
hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I
had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during
my youth cooped up in one place, and had longed to enter
the world, and take my station among other human beings.
Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed,
have been folly to repent.
I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections
during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and
fatiguing. At length the high white steeple of the town met
my eyes. I alighted, and was conducted to my solitary
apartment, to spend the evening as I pleased.
The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction,
and paid a visit to some of the principal professors.
Chance—or rather the evil influence, the Angel of
Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from
the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father’s
door—led me first to Mr. Krempe, professor of natural
philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in
the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions
concerning my progress in the different branches of science
appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly; and,
partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchymists
as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared:
“Have you,” he said, “really spent your time in studying such
nonsense?”
I replied in the affirmative. “Every minute,” continued
Mr. Krempe with warmth, “every instant that you have
wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have
burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless
names. Good God! in what desert land have you lived, where
no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies,
which you have so greedily imbibed, are a thousand years
old, and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in
this enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of
Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir, you must
begin your studies entirely anew.”
So saying, he stepped aside, and wrote down a list of
several books treating of natural philosophy, which he
desired me to procure; and dismissed me, after mentioning
that in the beginning of the following week he intended to
commence a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in
its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow-
professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days
that he omitted.
I returned home, not disappointed, for I have said that I
had long considered those authors useless whom the
professor reprobated; but I returned, not at all the more
inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. Mr. Krempe
was a little squat man, with a gruff voice and a repulsive
countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me
in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and
connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the
conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early
years. As a child, I had not been content with the results
promised by the modern professors of natural science. With
a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme
youth, and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod
the steps of knowledge along the paths of time, and
exchanged the discoveries of recent enquirers for the
dreams of forgotten alchymists. Besides, I had a contempt
for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very
different, when the masters of the science sought
immortality and power; such views, although futile, were
grand: but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the
enquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those
visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded.
I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur
for realities of little worth.
Such were my reflections during the first two or three days
of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in
becoming acquainted with the localities, and the principal
residents in my new abode. But as the ensuing week
commenced, I thought of the information which Mr. Krempe
had given me concerning the lectures. And although I could
not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow
deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had
said of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had
hitherto been out of town.
Partly from curiosity, and partly from idleness, I went into
the lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after.
This professor was very unlike his colleague. He appeared
about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the
greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his temples,
but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His
person was short, but remarkably erect; and his voice the
sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a
recapitulation of the history of chemistry, and the various
improvements made by different men of learning,
pronouncing with fervour the names of the most
distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of the
present state of the science, and explained many of its
elementary terms. After having made a few preparatory
experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern
chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget:—
“The ancient teachers of this science,” said he, “promised
impossibilities, and performed nothing. The modern masters
promise very little; they know that metals cannot be
transmuted, and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these
philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in
dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible,
have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the
recesses of nature, and show how she works in her hiding
places. They ascend into the heavens: they have discovered
how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we
breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited
powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic
the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its
own shadows.”
Such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such
the words of fate, enounced to destroy me. As he went on, I
felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one
by one the various keys were touched which formed the
mechanism of my being: chord after chord was sounded,
and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one
conception, one purpose. So much has been done,
exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I
achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer
a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the
world the deepest mysteries of creation.
I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a
state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would
thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By degrees,
after the morning’s dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my
yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream. There only
remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies, and to
devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to
possess a natural talent. On the same day, I paid M.
Waldman a visit. His manners in private were even more
mild and attractive than in public; for there was a certain
dignity in his mien during his lecture, which in his own
house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I
gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former
pursuits as I had given to his fellow-professor. He heard with
attention the little narration concerning my studies, and
smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus,
but without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He
said, that “these were men to whose indefatigable zeal
modern philosophers were indebted for most of the
foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an
easier task, to give new names, and arrange in connected
classifications, the facts which they in a great degree had
been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of
men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever
fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.”
I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any
presumption or affectation; and then added, that his lecture
had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I
expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and
deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting
escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed)
any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended
labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought
to procure.
“I am happy,” said M. Waldman, “to have gained a
disciple; and if your application equals your ability, I have
no doubt of your success. Chemistry is that branch of
natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have
been and may be made: it is on that account that I have
made it my peculiar study; but at the same time I have not
neglected the other branches of science. A man would make
but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department
of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a
man of science, and not merely a petty experimentalist, I
should advise you to apply to every branch of natural
philosophy, including mathematics.”
He then took me into his laboratory, and explained to me
the uses of his various machines; instructing me as to what I
ought to procure, and promising me the use of his own when
I should have advanced far enough in the science not to
derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books
which I had requested; and I took my leave.
Thus ended a day memorable to me: it decided my future
destiny.
 CHAPTER IV

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly

chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term,
became nearly my sole occupation. I read with ardour those
works, so full of genius and discrimination, which modern
enquirers have written on these subjects. I attended the
lectures, and cultivated the acquaintance, of the men of
science of the university; and I found even in M. Krempe a
great deal of sound sense and real information, combined, it
is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and manners, but not
on that account the less valuable. In M. Waldman I found a
true friend. His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism;
and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and
good nature, that banished every idea of pedantry. In a
thousand ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge,
and made the most abstruse enquiries clear and facile to my
apprehension. My application was at first fluctuating and
uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded, and soon
became so ardent and eager, that the stars often
disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged
in my laboratory.
As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my
progress was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment
of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters.
Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how
Cornelius Agrippa went on? whilst M. Waldman expressed
the most heartfelt exultation in my progress. Two years
passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to
Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of
some discoveries, which I hoped to make. None but those
who have experienced them can conceive of the
enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as
others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to
know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for
discovery and wonder. A mind of moderate capacity, which
closely pursues one study, must infallibly arrive at great
proficiency in that study; and I, who continually sought the
attainment of one object of pursuit, and was solely wrapt up
in this, improved so rapidly, that, at the end of two years, I
made some discoveries in the improvement of some
chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and
admiration at the university. When I had arrived at this
point, and had become as well acquainted with the theory
and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the
lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence
there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I
thought of returning to my friends and my native town,
when an incident happened that protracted my stay.
One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my
attention was the structure of the human frame, and,
indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked
myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold
question, and one which has ever been considered as a
mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of
becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not
restrain our enquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my
mind, and determined thenceforth to apply myself more
particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which
relate to physiology. Unless I had been animated by an
almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this
study would have been irksome, and almost intolerable. To
examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to
death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy:
but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural
decay and corruption of the human body. In my education
my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind
should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not
ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition, or
to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no
effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely
the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being
the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the
worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of
this decay, and forced to spend days and nights in vaults
and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every
object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human
feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and
wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the
blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the
wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and
analysing all the minutiæ of causation, as exemplified in the
change from life to death, and death to life, until from the
midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me—a
light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I
became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it
illustrated, I was surprised, that among so many men of
genius who had directed their enquiries towards the same
science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so
astonishing a secret.
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman.
The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens, than
that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have
produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct
and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and
fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation
and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing
animation upon lifeless matter.
The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this
discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so
much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the
summit of my desires, was the most gratifying
consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so great
and overwhelming, that all the steps by which I had been
progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the
result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest
men since the creation of the world was now within my
grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at
once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather
to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them
towards the object of my search, than to exhibit that object
already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been
buried with the dead, and found a passage to life, aided only
by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light.
I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which
your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed
of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be:
listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily
perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead
you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your
destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my
precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the
acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man
is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who
aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.
When I found so astonishing a power placed within my
hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in
which I should employ it. Although I possessed the capacity
of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the
reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and
veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and
labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the
creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler
organization; but my imagination was too much exalted by
my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give
life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man. The
materials at present within my command hardly appeared
adequate to so arduous an undertaking; but I doubted not
that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a
multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly
baffled, and at last my work be imperfect: yet, when I
considered the improvement which every day takes place in
science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my
present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future
success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity
of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was
with these feelings that I began the creation of a human
being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great
hinderance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first
intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to
say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large.
After having formed this determination, and having spent
some months in successfully collecting and arranging my
materials, I began.
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me
onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success.
Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should
first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark
world. A new species would bless me as its creator and
source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their
being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child
so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these
reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation upon
lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now
found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently
devoted the body to corruption.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my
undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown
pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with
confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I
failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the
next hour might realise. One secret which I alone possessed
was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon
gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and
breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.
Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled
among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the
living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now
tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then
a resistless, and almost frantic, impulse, urged me forward; I
seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one
pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made
me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural
stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.
I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with
profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame.
In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house,
and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery
and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation: my
eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the
details of my employment. The dissecting room and the
slaughterhouse furnished many of my materials; and often
did my human nature turn with loathing from my
occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which
perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a
conclusion.
The summer months passed while I was thus engaged,
heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful
season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest,
or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes
were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same
feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me
caused me also to forget those friends who were so many
miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I
knew my silence disquieted them; and I well remembered
the words of my father: “I know that while you are pleased
with yourself, you will think of us with affection, and we shall
hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any
interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your
other duties are equally neglected.”
I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings;
but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment,
loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold
of my imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all
that related to my feelings of affection until the great object,
which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be
completed.
I then thought that my father would be unjust if he
ascribed my neglect to vice, or faultiness on my part; but I
am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that I
should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in
perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful
mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to
disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of
knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which
you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your
affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple
pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study
is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human
mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed
any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of
his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved;
Caesar would have spared his country; America would have
been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico
and Peru had not been destroyed.
But I forget that I am moralising in the most interesting
part of my tale; and your looks remind me to proceed.
My father made no reproach in his letters, and only took
notice of my silence by enquiring into my occupations more
particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer passed
away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or
the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded
me supreme delight—so deeply was I engrossed in my
occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my
work drew near to a close; and now every day showed me
more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm
was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one
doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other
unwholesome trade, than an artist occupied by his favourite
employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever,
and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a
leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I
had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the
wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my
purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end,
and I believed that exercise and amusement would then
drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of
these when my creation should be complete.
 CHAPTER V

It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the

accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost
amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life
around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the
lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the
morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and
my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of
the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion
agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or
how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and
care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in
proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.
Beautiful!—Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the
work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a
lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness;
but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast
with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour
as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his
shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the
feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two
years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate
body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had
desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but
now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished,
and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to
endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of
the room, and continued a long time traversing my
bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At
length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before
endured; and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes,
endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it
was in vain: I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the
wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of
health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and
surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on
her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her
features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the
corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped
her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of
the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew
covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb
became convulsed: when, by the dim and yellow light of the
moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I
beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had
created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if
eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened,
and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin
wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not
hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me,
but I escaped, and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the
courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited; where I
remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down
in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and
fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of
the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given
life.
Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that
countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could
not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while
unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and
joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing
such as even Dante could not have conceived.
I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat
so quickly and hardly, that I felt the palpitation of every
artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through
languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I
felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been
my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now
become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the
overthrow so complete!
Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned, and
discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of
Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which indicated the
sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which
had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets,
pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the
wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would
present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment
which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although
drenched by the rain which poured from a black and
comfortless sky.
I continued walking in this manner for some time,
endeavouring, by bodily exercise, to ease the load that
weighed upon my mind. I traversed the streets, without any
clear conception of where I was, or what I was doing. My
heart palpitated in the sickness of fear; and I hurried on with
irregular steps, not daring to look about me:—

“Like one who, on a lonely road,

Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”1
 Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at
which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.
Here I paused, I knew not why; but I remained some minutes
with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming towards me
from the other end of the street. As it drew nearer, I
observed that it was the Swiss diligence: it stopped just
where I was standing; and, on the door being opened, I
perceived Henry Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly
sprung out. “My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed he, “how
glad I am to see you! how fortunate that you should be here
at the very moment of my alighting!”
Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his
presence brought back to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth,
and all those scenes of home so dear to my recollection. I
grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror and
misfortune; I felt suddenly, and for the first time during
many months, calm and serene joy. I welcomed my friend,
therefore, in the most cordial manner, and we walked
towards my college. Clerval continued talking for some time
about our mutual friends, and his own good fortune in being
permitted to come to Ingolstadt. “You may easily believe,”
said he, “how great was the difficulty to persuade my father
that all necessary knowledge was not comprised in the
noble art of bookkeeping; and, indeed, I believe I left him
incredulous to the last, for his constant answer to my
unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the Dutch
schoolmaster in the Vicar of Wakefield:—‘I have ten
thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily without
Greek.’ But his affection for me at length overcame his
dislike of learning, and he has permitted me to undertake a
voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge.”
“It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me
how you left my father, brothers, and Elizabeth.”
“Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they
hear from you so seldom. By the by, I mean to lecture you a
little upon their account myself.—But, my dear
Frankenstein,” continued he, stopping short, and gazing full
in my face, “I did not before remark how very ill you appear;
so thin and pale; you look as if you had been watching for
several nights.”
“You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply
engaged in one occupation, that I have not allowed myself
sufficient rest, as you see: but I hope, I sincerely hope, that
all these employments are now at an end, and that I am at
length free.”
I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and
far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night. I
walked with a quick pace, and we soon arrived at my
college. I then reflected, and the thought made me shiver,
that the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still
be there, alive, and walking about. I dreaded to behold this
monster; but I feared still more that Henry should see him.
Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes at the
bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my own room. My
hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected
myself. I then paused; and a cold shivering came over me. I
threw the door forcibly open, as children are accustomed to
do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them
on the other side; but nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully
in: the apartment was empty; and my bedroom was also
freed from its hideous guest. I could hardly believe that so
great a good fortune could have befallen me; but when I
became assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped
my hands for joy, and ran down to Clerval.
We ascended into my room, and the servant presently
brought breakfast; but I was unable to contain myself. It was
not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with
excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was
unable to remain for a single instant in the same place; I
jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed
aloud. Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on
his arrival; but when he observed me more attentively, he
saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account;
and my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter, frightened
and astonished him.
“My dear Victor,” cried he, “what, for God’s sake, is the
matter? Do not laugh in that manner. How ill you are! What
is the cause of all this?”
“Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my
eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the
room; “he can tell.—Oh, save me! save me!” I imagined that
the monster seized me; I struggled furiously, and fell down
in a fit.
Poor Clerval! what must have been his feelings? A
meeting, which he anticipated with such joy, so strangely
turned to bitterness. But I was not the witness of his grief;
for I was lifeless, and did not recover my senses for a long,
long time.
This was the commencement of a nervous fever, which
confined me for several months. During all that time Henry
was my only nurse. I afterwards learned that, knowing my
father’s advanced age, and unfitness for so long a journey,
and how wretched my sickness would make Elizabeth, he
spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my
disorder. He knew that I could not have a more kind and
attentive nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt of
my recovery, he did not doubt that, instead of doing harm,
he performed the kindest action that he could towards them.
But I was in reality very ill; and surely nothing but the
unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could
have restored me to life. The form of the monster on whom I
had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I
raved incessantly concerning him. Doubtless my words
surprised Henry: he at first believed them to be the
wanderings of my disturbed imagination; but the pertinacity
with which I continually recurred to the same subject,
persuaded him that my disorder indeed owed its origin to
some uncommon and terrible event.
 By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses, that
alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered. I remember the
first time I became capable of observing outward objects
with any kind of pleasure, I perceived that the fallen leaves
had disappeared, and that the young buds were shooting
forth from the trees that shaded my window. It was a divine
spring; and the season contributed greatly to my
convalescence. I felt also sentiments of joy and affection
revive in my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short
time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the
fatal passion.
“Dearest Clerval,” exclaimed I, “how kind, how very good
you are to me. This whole winter, instead of being spent in
study, as you promised yourself, has been consumed in my
sick room. How shall I ever repay you? I feel the greatest
remorse for the disappointment of which I have been the
occasion; but you will forgive me.”
“You will repay me entirely, if you do not discompose
yourself, but get well as fast as you can; and since you
appear in such good spirits, I may speak to you on one
subject, may I not?”
I trembled. One subject! what could it be? Could he allude
to an object on whom I dared not even think?
“Compose yourself,” said Clerval, who observed my
change of colour, “I will not mention it, if it agitates you; but
your father and cousin would be very happy if they received
a letter from you in your own handwriting. They hardly know
how ill you have been, and are uneasy at your long silence.”
“Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that
my first thought would not fly towards those dear, dear
friends whom I love, and who are so deserving of my love.”
“If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps
be glad to see a letter that has been lying here some days
for you: it is from your cousin, I believe.”
 CHAPTER VI

Clerval then put the following letter into my hands. It was

from my own Elizabeth:—

“My dearest Cousin,

“You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters
of dear kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your
account. You are forbidden to write—to hold a pen; yet one
word from you, dear Victor, is necessary to calm our
apprehensions. For a long time I have thought that each
post would bring this line, and my persuasions have
restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to
Ingolstadt. I have prevented his encountering the
inconveniences and perhaps dangers of so long a journey;
yet how often have I regretted not being able to perform it
myself! I figure to myself that the task of attending on your
sick bed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who
could never guess your wishes, nor minister to them with
the care and affection of your poor cousin. Yet that is over
now: Clerval writes that indeed you are getting better. I
eagerly hope that you will confirm this intelligence soon in
your own handwriting.
“Get well—and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful
home, and friends who love you dearly. Your father’s health
is vigorous, and he asks but to see you—but to be assured
that you are well; and not a care will ever cloud his
benevolent countenance. How pleased you would be to
remark the improvement of our Ernest! He is now sixteen,
and full of activity and spirit. He is desirous to be a true
Swiss, and to enter into foreign service; but we cannot part
with him, at least until his elder brother return to us. My
uncle is not pleased with the idea of a military career in a
distant country; but Ernest never had your powers of
application. He looks upon study as an odious fetter;—his
time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on
the lake. I fear that he will become an idler, unless we yield
the point, and permit him to enter on the profession which
he has selected.
“Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children,
has taken place since you left us. The blue lake, and snow-
clad mountains, they never change;—and I think our placid
home, and our contented hearts are regulated by the same
immutable laws. My trifling occupations take up my time
and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by
seeing none but happy, kind faces around me. Since you left
us, but one change has taken place in our little household.
Do you remember on what occasion Justine Moritz entered
our family? Probably you do not; I will relate her history,
therefore, in a few words. Madame Moritz, her mother, was a
widow with four children, of whom Justine was the third. This
girl had always been the favourite of her father; but, through
a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her, and,
after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill. My aunt
observed this; and, when Justine was twelve years of age,
prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house.
The republican institutions of our country have produced
simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the
great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less
distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants;
and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised,
their manners are more refined and moral. A servant in
Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in
France and England. Justine, thus received in our family,
learned the duties of a servant; a condition which, in our
fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance,
and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.
“Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of
yours; and I recollect you once remarked, that if you were in
an ill-humour, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for
the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of
Angelica—she looked so frank-hearted and happy. My aunt
conceived a great attachment for her, by which she was
induced to give her an education superior to that which she
had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid; Justine
was the most grateful little creature in the world: I do not
mean that she made any professions; I never heard one pass
her lips; but you could see by her eyes that she almost
adored her protectress. Although her disposition was gay,
and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the
greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt. She thought
her the model of all excellence, and endeavoured to imitate
her phraseology and manners, so that even now she often
reminds me of her.
“When my dearest aunt died, everyone was too much
occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had
attended her during her illness with the most anxious
affection. Poor Justine was very ill; but other trials were
reserved for her.
“One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother,
with the exception of her neglected daughter, was left
childless. The conscience of the woman was troubled; she
began to think that the deaths of her favourites was a
judgment from heaven to chastise her partiality. She was a
Roman Catholic; and I believe her confessor confirmed the
idea which she had conceived. Accordingly, a few months
after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home
by her repentant mother. Poor girl! she wept when she
quitted our house; she was much altered since the death of
my aunt; grief had given softness and a winning mildness to
her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity.
Nor was her residence at her mother’s house of a nature to
restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in
her repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to forgive
her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having
caused the deaths of her brothers and sister. Perpetual
fretting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which
at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace
forever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, at
the beginning of this last winter. Justine has returned to us;
and I assure you I love her tenderly. She is very clever and
gentle, and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her
mien and her expressions continually remind me of my dear
aunt.
“I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of
little darling William. I wish you could see him; he is very tall
of his age, with sweet laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes,
and curling hair. When he smiles, two little dimples appear
on each cheek, which are rosy with health. He has already
had one or two little wives, but Louisa Biron is his favourite,
a pretty little girl of five years of age.
“Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a
little gossip concerning the good people of Geneva. The
pretty Miss Mansfield has already received the
congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with a
young Englishman, John Melbourne, Esq. Her ugly sister,
Manon, married M. Duvillard, the rich banker, last autumn.
Your favourite schoolfellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered
several misfortunes since the departure of Clerval from
Geneva. But he has already recovered his spirits, and is
reported to be on the point of marrying a very lively pretty
Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier. She is a widow, and much
older than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a
favourite with everybody.
“I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin; but
my anxiety returns upon me as I conclude. Write, dearest
Victor—one line—one word will be a blessing to us. Ten
thousand thanks to Henry for his kindness, his affection, and
his many letters: we are sincerely grateful. Adieu! my
cousin; take care of yourself; and, I entreat you, write!

“ELIZABETH LAVENZA.
“Geneva, March 18th, 17—.”

“Dear, dear Elizabeth!” I exclaimed, when I had read her

letter, “I will write instantly, and relieve them from the
anxiety they must feel.” I wrote, and this exertion greatly
fatigued me; but my convalescence had commenced, and
proceeded regularly. In another fortnight I was able to leave
my chamber.
One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce
Clerval to the several professors of the university. In doing
this, I underwent a kind of rough usage, ill befitting the
wounds that my mind had sustained. Ever since the fatal
night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my
misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the
name of natural philosophy. When I was otherwise quite
restored to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would
renew all the agony of my nervous symptoms. Henry saw
this, and had removed all my apparatus from my view. He
had also changed my apartment; for he perceived that I had
acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been
my laboratory. But these cares of Clerval were made of no
avail when I visited the professors. M. Waldman inflicted
torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the
astonishing progress I had made in the sciences. He soon
perceived that I disliked the subject; but not guessing the
real cause, he attributed my feelings to modesty, and
changed the subject from my improvement, to the science
itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out.
What could I do? He meant to please, and he tormented me.
I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view
those instruments which were to be afterwards used in
putting me to a slow and cruel death. I writhed under his
words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt. Clerval, whose
eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the
sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in
excuse, his total ignorance; and the conversation took a
more general turn. I thanked my friend from my heart, but I
did not speak. I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he
never attempted to draw my secret from me; and although I
loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that
knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to
confide to him that event which was so often present to my
recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would
only impress more deeply.
M. Krempe was not equally docile; and in my condition at
that time, of almost insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh
blunt encomiums gave me even more pain than the
benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. “D——n the fellow!”
cried he; “why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has outstript us
all. Ay, stare if you please; but it is nevertheless true. A
youngster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cornelius
Agrippa as firmly as in the gospel, has now set himself at the
head of the university; and if he is not soon pulled down, we
shall all be out of countenance.—Ay, ay,” continued he,
observing my face expressive of suffering, “M. Frankenstein
is modest; an excellent quality in a young man. Young men
should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. Clerval: I
was myself when young; but that wears out in a very short
time.”
M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself,
which happily turned the conversation from a subject that
was so annoying to me.
Clerval had never sympathised in my tastes for natural
science; and his literary pursuits differed wholly from those
which had occupied me. He came to the university with the
design of making himself complete master of the oriental
languages, as thus he should open a field for the plan of life
he had marked out for himself. Resolved to pursue no
inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as
affording scope for his spirit of enterprise. The Persian,
Arabic, and Sanskrit languages engaged his attention, and I
was easily induced to enter on the same studies. Idleness
had ever been irksome to me, and now that I wished to fly
from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt great
relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not
only instruction but consolation in the works of the
orientalists. I did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge
of their dialects, for I did not contemplate making any other
use of them than temporary amusement. I read merely to
understand their meaning, and they well repaid my labours.
Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a
degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any
other country. When you read their writings, life appears to
consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses—in the smiles
and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your
own heart. How different from the manly and heroical poetry
of Greece and Rome!
Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return
to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn; but being
delayed by several accidents, winter and snow arrived, the
roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was
retarded until the ensuing spring. I felt this delay very
bitterly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved
friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an
unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he
had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The
winter, however, was spent cheerfully; and although the
spring was uncommonly late, when it came its beauty
compensated for its dilatoriness.
The month of May had already commenced, and I
expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my
departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the
environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to
the country I had so long inhabited. I acceded with pleasure
to this proposition: I was fond of exercise, and Clerval had
always been my favourite companion in the rambles of this
nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native
country.
We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health
and spirits had long been restored, and they gained
additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed, the
natural incidents of our progress, and the conversation of
my friend. Study had before secluded me from the
intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me
unsocial; but Clerval called forth the better feelings of my
heart; he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and
the cheerful faces of children. Excellent friend! how
sincerely did you love me, and endeavour to elevate my
mind until it was on a level with your own! A selfish pursuit
had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and
affection warmed and opened my senses; I became the same
happy creature who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by
all, had no sorrow or care. When happy, inanimate nature
had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful
sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with
ecstasy. The present season was indeed divine; the flowers
of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer
were already in bud. I was undisturbed by thoughts which
during the preceding year had pressed upon me,
notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an
invincible burden.
Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in
my feelings: he exerted himself to amuse me, while he
expressed the sensations that filled his soul. The resources
of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing: his
conversation was full of imagination; and very often, in
imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales
of wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated
my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments, which
he supported with great ingenuity.
We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the
peasants were dancing, and everyone we met appeared gay
and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along
with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.
 CHAPTER VII

On my return, I found the following letter from my father:—

“My dear Victor,

“You have probably waited impatiently for a letter to fix
the date of your return to us; and I was at first tempted to
write only a few lines, merely mentioning the day on which I
should expect you. But that would be a cruel kindness, and I
dare not do it. What would be your surprise, my son, when
you expected a happy and glad welcome, to behold, on the
contrary, tears and wretchedness? And how, Victor, can I
relate our misfortune? Absence cannot have rendered you
callous to our joys and griefs; and how shall I inflict pain on
my long absent son? I wish to prepare you for the woful
news, but I know it is impossible; even now your eye skims
over the page, to seek the words which are to convey to you
the horrible tidings.
“William is dead!—that sweet child, whose smiles
delighted and warmed my heart, who was so gentle, yet so
gay! Victor, he is murdered!
“I will not attempt to console you; but will simply relate
the circumstances of the transaction.
“Last Thursday (May 7th), I, my niece, and your two
brothers, went to walk in Plainpalais. The evening was warm
and serene, and we prolonged our walk farther than usual. It
was already dusk before we thought of returning; and then
we discovered that William and Ernest, who had gone on
before, were not to be found. We accordingly rested on a
seat until they should return. Presently Ernest came, and
enquired if we had seen his brother: he said, that he had
been playing with him, that William had run away to hide
himself, and that he vainly sought for him, and afterwards
waited for him a long time, but that he did not return.
“This account rather alarmed us, and we continued to
search for him until night fell, when Elizabeth conjectured
that he might have returned to the house. He was not there.
We returned again, with torches; for I could not rest, when I
thought that my sweet boy had lost himself, and was
exposed to all the damps and dews of night; Elizabeth also
suffered extreme anguish. About five in the morning I
discovered my lovely boy, whom the night before I had seen
blooming and active in health, stretched on the grass livid
and motionless: the print of the murderer’s finger was on his
neck.
“He was conveyed home, and the anguish that was visible
in my countenance betrayed the secret to Elizabeth. She
was very earnest to see the corpse. At first I attempted to
prevent her; but she persisted, and entering the room where
it lay, hastily examined the neck of the victim, and clasping
her hands exclaimed, ‘O God! I have murdered my darling
child!’
“She fainted, and was restored with extreme difficulty.
When she again lived, it was only to weep and sigh. She told
me, that that same evening William had teased her to let
him wear a very valuable miniature that she possessed of
your mother. This picture is gone, and was doubtless the
temptation which urged the murderer to the deed. We have
no trace of him at present, although our exertions to
discover him are unremitted; but they will not restore my
beloved William!
“Come, dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth.
She weeps continually, and accuses herself unjustly as the
cause of his death; her words pierce my heart. We are all
unhappy; but will not that be an additional motive for you,
my son, to return and be our comforter? Your dear mother!
Alas, Victor! I now say, Thank God she did not live to witness
the cruel, miserable death of her youngest darling!
“Come, Victor; not brooding thoughts of vengeance
against the assassin, but with feelings of peace and
gentleness, that will heal, instead of festering, the wounds of
our minds. Enter the house of mourning, my friend, but with
kindness and affection for those who love you, and not with
hatred for your enemies.

“Your affectionate and afflicted father,

“ALPHONSE FRANKENSTEIN.
“Geneva, May 12th, 17—.”

Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this

letter, was surprised to observe the despair that succeeded
to the joy I at first expressed on receiving news from my
friends. I threw the letter on the table, and covered my face
with my hands.
“My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed Henry, when he
perceived me weep with bitterness, “are you always to be
unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened?”
I motioned to him to take up the letter, while I walked up
and down the room in the extremest agitation. Tears also
gushed from the eyes of Clerval, as he read the account of
my misfortune.
“I can offer you no consolation, my friend,” said he; “your
disaster is irreparable. What do you intend to do?”
“To go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order
the horses.”
During our walk, Clerval endeavoured to say a few words
of consolation; he could only express his heartfelt sympathy.
“Poor William!” said he, “dear lovely child, he now sleeps
with his angel mother! Who that had seen him bright and
joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his
untimely loss! To die so miserably; to feel the murderer’s
grasp! How much more a murderer, that could destroy such
radiant innocence! Poor little fellow! one only consolation
have we; his friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest. The
pang is over, his sufferings are at an end forever. A sod
covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no
longer be a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his
miserable survivors.”
Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets; the
words impressed themselves on my mind, and I remembered
them afterwards in solitude. But now, as soon as the horses
arrived, I hurried into a cabriolet, and bade farewell to my
friend.
My journey was very melancholy. At first I wished to hurry
on, for I longed to console and sympathise with my loved
and sorrowing friends; but when I drew near my native town,
I slackened my progress. I could hardly sustain the multitude
of feelings that crowded into my mind. I passed through
scenes familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen for
nearly six years. How altered everything might be during
that time! One sudden and desolating change had taken
place; but a thousand little circumstances might have by
degrees worked other alterations, which, although they were
done more tranquilly, might not be the less decisive. Fear
overcame me; I dared not advance, dreading a thousand
nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable
to define them.
I remained two days at Lausanne, in this painful state of
mind. I contemplated the lake: the waters were placid; all
around was calm; and the snowy mountains, “the palaces of
nature,” were not changed. By degrees the calm and
heavenly scene restored me, and I continued my journey
towards Geneva.
The road ran by the side of the lake, which became
narrower as I approached my native town. I discovered more
distinctly the black sides of Jura, and the bright summit of
Mont Blanc. I wept like a child. “Dear mountains! my own
beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer? Your
summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is
this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?”
I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by
dwelling on these preliminary circumstances; but they were
days of comparative happiness, and I think of them with
pleasure. My country, my beloved country! who but a native
can tell the delight I took in again beholding thy streams,
thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely lake!
Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame
me. Night also closed around; and when I could hardly see
the dark mountains, I felt still more gloomily. The picture
appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw
obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched
of human beings. Alas! I prophesied truly, and failed only in
one single circumstance, that in all the misery I imagined
and dreaded, I did not conceive the hundredth part of the
anguish I was destined to endure.
It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of
Geneva; the gates of the town were already shut; and I was
obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a village at the
distance of half a league from the city. The sky was serene;
and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to visit the spot where
my poor William had been murdered. As I could not pass
through the town, I was obliged to cross the lake in a boat to
arrive at Plainpalais. During this short voyage I saw the
lightnings playing on the summit of Mont Blanc in the most
beautiful figures. The storm appeared to approach rapidly;
and, on landing, I ascended a low hill, that I might observe
its progress. It advanced; the heavens were clouded, and I
soon felt the rain coming slowly in large drops, but its
violence quickly increased.
I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness
and storm increased every minute, and the thunder burst
with a terrific crash over my head. It was echoed from
Salêve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of
lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it
appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant
everything seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye
recovered itself from the preceding flash. The storm, as is
often the case in Switzerland, appeared at once in various
parts of the heavens. The most violent storm hung exactly
north of the town, over that part of the lake which lies
between the promontory of Belrive and the village of Copêt.
Another storm enlightened Jura with faint flashes; and
another darkened and sometimes disclosed the Môle, a
peaked mountain to the east of the lake.
While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I
wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky
elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands, and exclaimed
aloud, “William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy
dirge!” As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a
figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I
stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash
of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape
plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its
aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly
informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy dæmon, to
whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he be (I
shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother?
No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became
convinced of its truth; my teeth chattered, and I was forced
to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me
quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape
could have destroyed that fair child. He was the murderer! I
could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an
irresistible proof of the fact. I thought of pursuing the devil;
but it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered
him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly
perpendicular ascent of Mont Salêve, a hill that bounds
Plainpalais on the south. He soon reached the summit, and
disappeared.
 I remained motionless. The thunder ceased; but the rain
still continued, and the scene was enveloped in an
impenetrable darkness. I revolved in my mind the events
which I had until now sought to forget: the whole train of my
progress towards the creation; the appearance of the work of
my own hands alive at my bedside; its departure. Two years
had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first
received life; and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned
loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in
carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?
No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the
remainder of the night, which I spent, cold and wet, in the
open air. But I did not feel the inconvenience of the weather;
my imagination was busy in scenes of evil and despair. I
considered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and
endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of
horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in
the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the
grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.
Day dawned; and I directed my steps towards the town.
The gates were open, and I hastened to my father’s house.
My first thought was to discover what I knew of the
murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be made. But I
paused when I reflected on the story that I had to tell. A
being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had
met me at midnight among the precipices of an inaccessible
mountain. I remembered also the nervous fever with which I
had been seized just at the time that I dated my creation,
and which would give an air of delirium to a tale otherwise
so utterly improbable. I well knew that if any other had
communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked
upon it as the ravings of insanity. Besides, the strange
nature of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if I were
so far credited as to persuade my relatives to commence it.
And then of what use would be pursuit? Who could arrest a
creature capable of scaling the overhanging sides of Mont
Salêve? These reflections determined me, and I resolved to
remain silent.
It was about five in the morning when I entered my
father’s house. I told the servants not to disturb the family,
and went into the library to attend their usual hour of rising.
Six years had elapsed, passed as a dream but for one
indelible trace, and I stood in the same place where I had
last embraced my father before my departure for Ingolstadt.
Beloved and venerable parent! He still remained to me. I
gazed on the picture of my mother, which stood over the
mantelpiece. It was an historical subject, painted at my
father’s desire, and represented Caroline Beaufort in an
agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father.
Her garb was rustic, and her cheek pale; but there was an air
of dignity and beauty, that hardly permitted the sentiment
of pity. Below this picture was a miniature of William; and
my tears flowed when I looked upon it. While I was thus
engaged, Ernest entered: he had heard me arrive, and
hastened to welcome me. He expressed a sorrowful delight
to see me: “Welcome, my dearest Victor,” said he. “Ah! I wish
you had come three months ago, and then you would have
found us all joyous and delighted. You come to us now to
share a misery which nothing can alleviate; yet your
presence will, I hope, revive our father, who seems sinking
under his misfortune; and your persuasions will induce poor
Elizabeth to cease her vain and tormenting self-
accusations.—Poor William! he was our darling and our
pride!”
Tears, unrestrained, fell from my brother’s eyes; a sense of
mortal agony crept over my frame. Before, I had only
imagined the wretchedness of my desolated home; the
reality came on me as a new, and a not less terrible, disaster.
I tried to calm Ernest; I enquired more minutely concerning
my father, and her I named my cousin.
“She most of all,” said Ernest, “requires consolation; she
accused herself of having caused the death of my brother,
and that made her very wretched. But since the murderer
has been discovered—”
“The murderer discovered! Good God! how can that be?
who could attempt to pursue him? It is impossible; one
might as well try to overtake the winds, or confine a
mountain-stream with a straw. I saw him too; he was free last
night!”
“I do not know what you mean,” replied my brother, in
accents of wonder, “but to us the discovery we have made
completes our misery. No one would believe it at first; and
even now Elizabeth will not be convinced, notwithstanding
all the evidence. Indeed, who would credit that Justine
Moritz, who was so amiable, and fond of all the family, could
suddenly become capable of so frightful, so appalling a
crime?”
“Justine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is
wrongfully; everyone knows that; no one believes it, surely,
Ernest?”
“No one did at first; but several circumstances came out,
that have almost forced conviction upon us; and her own
behaviour has been so confused, as to add to the evidence
of facts a weight that, I fear, leaves no hope for doubt. But
she will be tried today, and you will then hear all.”
He related that, the morning on which the murder of poor
William had been discovered, Justine had been taken ill, and
confined to her bed for several days. During this interval,
one of the servants, happening to examine the apparel she
had worn on the night of the murder, had discovered in her
pocket the picture of my mother, which had been judged to
be the temptation of the murderer. The servant instantly
showed it to one of the others, who, without saying a word to
any of the family, went to a magistrate; and, upon their
deposition, Justine was apprehended. On being charged with
the fact, the poor girl confirmed the suspicion in a great
measure by her extreme confusion of manner.
 This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I
replied earnestly, “You are all mistaken; I know the murderer.
Justine, poor, good Justine, is innocent.”
At that instant my father entered. I saw unhappiness
deeply impressed on his countenance, but he endeavoured
to welcome me cheerfully; and, after we had exchanged our
mournful greeting, would have introduced some other topic
than that of our disaster, had not Ernest exclaimed, “Good
God, papa! Victor says that he knows who was the murderer
of poor William.”
“We do also, unfortunately,” replied my father; “for indeed
I had rather have been forever ignorant than have
discovered so much depravity and ingratitude in one I
valued so highly.”
“My dear father, you are mistaken; Justine is innocent.”
“If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty. She is
to be tried today, and I hope, I sincerely hope, that she will
be acquitted.”
This speech calmed me. I was firmly convinced in my own
mind that Justine, and indeed every human being, was
guiltless of this murder. I had no fear, therefore, that any
circumstantial evidence could be brought forward strong
enough to convict her. My tale was not one to announce
publicly; its astounding horror would be looked upon as
madness by the vulgar. Did anyone indeed exist, except I,
the creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced
him, in the existence of the living monument of presumption
and rash ignorance which I had let loose upon the world?
We were soon joined by Elizabeth. Time had altered her
since I last beheld her; it had endowed her with loveliness
surpassing the beauty of her childish years. There was the
same candour, the same vivacity, but it was allied to an
expression more full of sensibility and intellect. She
welcomed me with the greatest affection. “Your arrival, my
dear cousin,” said she, “fills me with hope. You perhaps will
find some means to justify my poor guiltless Justine. Alas!
who is safe, if she be convicted of crime? I rely on her
innocence as certainly as I do upon my own. Our misfortune
is doubly hard to us; we have not only lost that lovely
darling boy, but this poor girl, whom I sincerely love, is to be
torn away by even a worse fate. If she is condemned, I never
shall know joy more. But she will not, I am sure she will not;
and then I shall be happy again, even after the sad death of
my little William.”
“She is innocent, my Elizabeth,” said I, “and that shall be
proved; fear nothing, but let your spirits be cheered by the
assurance of her acquittal.”
“How kind and generous you are! everyone else believes
in her guilt, and that made me wretched, for I knew that it
was impossible: and to see everyone else prejudiced in so
deadly a manner rendered me hopeless and despairing.”
She wept.
“Dearest niece,” said my father, “dry your tears. If she is,
as you believe, innocent, rely on the justice of our laws, and
the activity with which I shall prevent the slightest shadow
of partiality.”
 CHAPTER VIII

We passed a few sad hours, until eleven o’clock, when the

trial was to commence. My father and the rest of the family
being obliged to attend as witnesses, I accompanied them to
the court. During the whole of this wretched mockery of
justice I suffered living torture. It was to be decided, whether
the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause
the death of two of my fellow-beings: one a smiling babe,
full of innocence and joy; the other far more dreadfully
murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make
the murder memorable in horror. Justine also was a girl of
merit, and possessed qualities which promised to render her
life happy: now all was to be obliterated in an ignominious
grave; and I the cause! A thousand times rather would I
have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to
Justine; but I was absent when it was committed, and such a
declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a
madman, and would not have exculpated her who suffered
through me.
The appearance of Justine was calm. She was dressed in
mourning; and her countenance, always engaging, was
rendered, by the solemnity of her feelings, exquisitely
beautiful. Yet she appeared confident in innocence, and did
not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by
thousands; for all the kindness which her beauty might
otherwise have excited, was obliterated in the minds of the
spectators by the imagination of the enormity she was
supposed to have committed. She was tranquil, yet her
tranquillity was evidently constrained; and as her confusion
had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she worked
up her mind to an appearance of courage. When she entered
the court, she threw her eyes round it, and quickly
discovered where we were seated. A tear seemed to dim her
eye when she saw us; but she quickly recovered herself, and
a look of sorrowful affection seemed to attest her utter
guiltlessness.
The trial began; and, after the advocate against her had
stated the charge, several witnesses were called. Several
strange facts combined against her, which might have
staggered anyone who had not such proof of her innocence
as I had. She had been out the whole of the night on which
the murder had been committed, and towards morning had
been perceived by a market-woman not far from the spot
where the body of the murdered child had been afterwards
found. The woman asked her what she did there; but she
looked very strangely, and only returned a confused and
unintelligible answer. She returned to the house about eight
o’clock; and, when one enquired where she had passed the
night, she replied that she had been looking for the child,
and demanded earnestly if anything had been heard
concerning him. When shown the body, she fell into violent
hysterics, and kept her bed for several days. The picture was
then produced, which the servant had found in her pocket;
and when Elizabeth, in a faltering voice, proved that it was
the same which, an hour before the child had been missed,
she had placed round his neck, a murmur of horror and
indignation filled the court.
Justine was called on for her defence. As the trial had
proceeded, her countenance had altered. Surprise, horror,
and misery were strongly expressed. Sometimes she
struggled with her tears; but, when she was desired to
plead, she collected her powers, and spoke, in an audible,
although variable voice.
 “God knows,” she said, “how entirely I am innocent. But I
do not pretend that my protestations should acquit me: I
rest my innocence on a plain and simple explanation of the
facts which have been adduced against me; and I hope the
character I have always borne will incline my judges to a
favourable interpretation, where any circumstance appears
doubtful or suspicious.”
She then related that, by the permission of Elizabeth, she
had passed the evening of the night on which the murder
had been committed at the house of an aunt at Chêne, a
village situated at about a league from Geneva. On her
return, at about nine o’clock, she met a man, who asked her
if she had seen anything of the child who was lost. She was
alarmed by this account, and passed several hours in
looking for him, when the gates of Geneva were shut, and
she was forced to remain several hours of the night in a barn
belonging to a cottage, being unwilling to call up the
inhabitants, to whom she was well known. Most of the night
she spent here watching; towards morning she believed that
she slept for a few minutes; some steps disturbed her, and
she awoke. It was dawn, and she quitted her asylum, that
she might again endeavour to find my brother. If she had
gone near the spot where his body lay, it was without her
knowledge. That she had been bewildered when questioned
by the market-woman was not surprising, since she had
passed a sleepless night, and the fate of poor William was
yet uncertain. Concerning the picture she could give no
account.
“I know,” continued the unhappy victim, “how heavily and
fatally this one circumstance weighs against me, but I have
no power of explaining it; and when I have expressed my
utter ignorance, I am only left to conjecture concerning the
probabilities by which it might have been placed in my
pocket. But here also I am checked. I believe that I have no
enemy on earth, and none surely would have been so
wicked as to destroy me wantonly. Did the murderer place it
there? I know of no opportunity afforded him for so doing;
or, if I had, why should he have stolen the jewel, to part with
it again so soon?
“I commit my cause to the justice of my judges, yet I see
no room for hope. I beg permission to have a few witnesses
examined concerning my character; and if their testimony
shall not overweigh my supposed guilt, I must be
condemned, although I would pledge my salvation on my
innocence.”
Several witnesses were called, who had known her for
many years, and they spoke well of her; but fear, and hatred
of the crime of which they supposed her guilty, rendered
them timorous, and unwilling to come forward. Elizabeth
saw even this last resource, her excellent dispositions and
irreproachable conduct, about to fail the accused, when,
although violently agitated, she desired permission to
address the court.
“I am,” said she, “the cousin of the unhappy child who was
murdered, or rather his sister, for I was educated by, and
have lived with his parents ever since and even long before,
his birth. It may therefore be judged indecent in me to come
forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature
about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended
friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I
know of her character. I am well acquainted with the
accused. I have lived in the same house with her, at one
time for five, and at another for nearly two years. During all
that period she appeared to me the most amiable and
benevolent of human creatures. She nursed Madame
Frankenstein, my aunt, in her last illness, with the greatest
affection and care; and afterwards attended her own mother
during a tedious illness, in a manner that excited the
admiration of all who knew her; after which she again lived
in my uncle’s house, where she was beloved by all the
family. She was warmly attached to the child who is now
dead, and acted towards him like a most affectionate
mother. For my own part, I do not hesitate to say, that,
notwithstanding all the evidence produced against her, I
believe and rely on her perfect innocence. She had no
temptation for such an action: as to the bauble on which the
chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should
have willingly given it to her; so much do I esteem and value
her.”
A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth’s simple and
powerful appeal; but it was excited by her generous
interference, and not in favour of poor Justine, on whom the
public indignation was turned with renewed violence,
charging her with the blackest ingratitude. She herself wept
as Elizabeth spoke, but she did not answer. My own agitation
and anguish was extreme during the whole trial. I believed
in her innocence; I knew it. Could the dæmon, who had (I
did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother, also in his
hellish sport have betrayed the innocent to death and
ignominy? I could not sustain the horror of my situation; and
when I perceived that the popular voice, and the
countenances of the judges, had already condemned my
unhappy victim, I rushed out of the court in agony. The
tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was
sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my
bosom, and would not forego their hold.
I passed a night of unmingled wretchedness. In the
morning I went to the court; my lips and throat were
parched. I dared not ask the fatal question; but I was known,
and the officer guessed the cause of my visit. The ballots
had been thrown; they were all black, and Justine was
condemned.
I cannot pretend to describe what I then felt. I had before
experienced sensations of horror; and I have endeavoured to
bestow upon them adequate expressions, but words cannot
convey an idea of the heart-sickening despair that I then
endured. The person to whom I addressed myself added,
that Justine had already confessed her guilt. “That
evidence,” he observed, “was hardly required in so glaring a
case, but I am glad of it; and, indeed, none of our judges like
to condemn a criminal upon circumstantial evidence, be it
ever so decisive.”
This was strange and unexpected intelligence; what could
it mean? Had my eyes deceived me? and was I really as mad
as the whole world would believe me to be, if I disclosed the
object of my suspicions? I hastened to return home, and
Elizabeth eagerly demanded the result.
“My cousin,” replied I, “it is decided as you may have
expected; all judges had rather that ten innocent should
suffer, than that one guilty should escape. But she has
confessed.”
This was a dire blow to poor Elizabeth, who had relied with
firmness upon Justine’s innocence. “Alas!” said she, “how
shall I ever again believe in human goodness? Justine, whom
I loved and esteemed as my sister, how could she put on
those smiles of innocence only to betray? her mild eyes
seemed incapable of any severity or guile, and yet she has
committed a murder.”
Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a
desire to see my cousin. My father wished her not to go; but
said, that he left it to her own judgment and feelings to
decide. “Yes,” said Elizabeth, “I will go, although she is
guilty; and you, Victor, shall accompany me: I cannot go
alone.” The idea of this visit was torture to me, yet I could
not refuse.
We entered the gloomy prison-chamber, and beheld
Justine sitting on some straw at the farther end; her hands
were manacled, and her head rested on her knees. She rose
on seeing us enter; and when we were left alone with her,
she threw herself at the feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly.
My cousin wept also.
“Oh, Justine!” said she, “why did you rob me of my last
consolation? I relied on your innocence; and although I was
then very wretched, I was not so miserable as I am now.”
 “And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked?
Do you also join with my enemies to crush me, to condemn
me as a murderer?” Her voice was suffocated with sobs.
“Rise, my poor girl,” said Elizabeth, “why do you kneel, if
you are innocent? I am not one of your enemies; I believed
you guiltless, notwithstanding every evidence, until I heard
that you had yourself declared your guilt. That report, you
say, is false; and be assured, dear Justine, that nothing can
shake my confidence in you for a moment, but your own
confession.”
“I did confess; but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I
might obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier
at my heart than all my other sins. The God of heaven
forgive me! Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has
besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost
began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He
threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last
moments, if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to
support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to
ignominy and perdition. What could I do? In an evil hour I
subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly miserable.”
She paused, weeping, and then continued—“I thought
with horror, my sweet lady, that you should believe your
Justine, whom your blessed aunt had so highly honoured,
and whom you loved, was a creature capable of a crime
which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated.
Dear William! dearest blessed child! I soon shall see you
again in heaven, where we shall all be happy; and that
consoles me, going as I am to suffer ignominy and death.”
“Oh, Justine! forgive me for having for one moment
distrusted you. Why did you confess? But do not mourn,
dear girl. Do not fear. I will proclaim, I will prove your
innocence. I will melt the stony hearts of your enemies by
my tears and prayers. You shall not die!—You, my playfellow,
my companion, my sister, perish on the scaffold! No! no! I
never could survive so horrible a misfortune.”
 Justine shook her head mournfully. “I do now not fear to
die,” she said; “that pang is past. God raises my weakness,
and gives me courage to endure the worst. I leave a sad and
bitter world; and if you remember me, and think of me as of
one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting
me. Learn from me, dear lady, to submit in patience to the
will of Heaven!”
During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the
prison-room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that
possessed me. Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor
victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary
between life and death, felt not as I did, such deep and
bitter agony. I gnashed my teeth, and ground them together,
uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul. Justine
started. When she saw who it was, she approached me, and
said, “Dear sir, you are very kind to visit me; you, I hope, do
not believe that I am guilty?”
I could not answer. “No, Justine,” said Elizabeth; “he is
more convinced of your innocence than I was; for even when
he heard that you had confessed, he did not credit it.”
“I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the
sincerest gratitude towards those who think of me with
kindness. How sweet is the affection of others to such a
wretch as I am! It removes more than half my misfortune;
and I feel as if I could die in peace, now that my innocence is
acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin.”
Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself.
She indeed gained the resignation she desired. But I, the
true murderer, felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom,
which allowed of no hope or consolation. Elizabeth also
wept, and was unhappy; but her’s also was the misery of
innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair
moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness.
Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my
heart; I bore a hell within me, which nothing could
extinguish. We stayed several hours with Justine; and it was
with great difficulty that Elizabeth could tear herself away. “I
wish,” cried she, “that I were to die with you; I cannot live in
this world of misery.”
Justine assumed an air of cheerfulness, while she with
difficulty repressed her bitter tears. She embraced Elizabeth,
and said, in a voice of half-suppressed emotion, “Farewell,
sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, my beloved and only friend;
may Heaven, in its bounty, bless and preserve you; may this
be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer! Live, and be
happy, and make others so.”
And on the morrow Justine died. Elizabeth’s heartrending
eloquence failed to move the judges from their settled
conviction in the criminality of the saintly sufferer. My
passionate and indignant appeals were lost upon them. And
when I received their cold answers, and heard the harsh
unfeeling reasoning of these men, my purposed avowal died
away on my lips. Thus I might proclaim myself a madman,
but not revoke the sentence passed upon my wretched
victim. She perished on the scaffold as a murderess!
From the tortures of my own heart, I turned to contemplate
the deep and voiceless grief of my Elizabeth. This also was
my doing! And my father’s woe, and the desolation of that
late so smiling home—all was the work of my thrice-
accursed hands! Ye weep, unhappy ones; but these are not
your last tears! Again shall you raise the funeral wail, and
the sound of your lamentations shall again and again be
heard! Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early,
much-loved friend; he who would spend each vital drop of
blood for your sakes—who has no thought nor sense of joy,
except as it is mirrored also in your dear countenances—who
would fill the air with blessings, and spend his life in serving
you—he bids you weep—to shed countless tears; happy
beyond his hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if
the destruction pause before the peace of the grave have
succeeded to your sad torments!
 Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror,
and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon
the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to
my unhallowed arts.
 CHAPTER IX

Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the

feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of
events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which
follows, and deprives the soul both of hope and fear. Justine
died; she rested; and I was alive. The blood flowed freely in
my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on
my heart, which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my
eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed
deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more,
much more (I persuaded myself), was yet behind. Yet my
heart overflowed with kindness, and the love of virtue. I had
begun life with benevolent intentions, and thirsted for the
moment when I should put them in practice, and make
myself useful to my fellow-beings. Now all was blasted:
instead of that serenity of conscience, which allowed me to
look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from
thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by
remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a
hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe.
This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had
perhaps never entirely recovered from the first shock it had
sustained. I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or
complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only
consolation—deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in
my disposition and habits, and endeavoured by arguments
deduced from the feelings of his serene conscience and
guiltless life, to inspire me with fortitude, and awaken in me
the courage to dispel the dark cloud which brooded over me.
“Do you think, Victor,” said he, “that I do not suffer also? No
one could love a child more than I loved your brother;”
(tears came into his eyes as he spoke;) “but is it not a duty
to the survivors, that we should refrain from augmenting
their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It
is also a duty owed to yourself; for excessive sorrow prevents
improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily
usefulness, without which no man is fit for society.”
This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my
case; I should have been the first to hide my grief, and
console my friends, if remorse had not mingled its
bitterness, and terror its alarm with my other sensations.
Now I could only answer my father with a look of despair,
and endeavour to hide myself from his view.
About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This
change was particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the
gates regularly at ten o’clock, and the impossibility of
remaining on the lake after that hour, had rendered our
residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome to me. I
was now free. Often, after the rest of the family had retired
for the night, I took the boat, and passed many hours upon
the water. Sometimes, with my sails set, I was carried by the
wind; and sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the
lake, I left the boat to pursue its own course, and gave way
to my own miserable reflections. I was often tempted, when
all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thing
that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and
heavenly—if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh
and interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached
the shore—often, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the
silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my
calamities forever. But I was restrained, when I thought of
the heroic and suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly loved,
and whose existence was bound up in mine. I thought also of
my father, and surviving brother: should I by my base
desertion leave them exposed and unprotected to the
malice of the fiend whom I had let loose among them?
At these moments I wept bitterly, and wished that peace
would revisit my mind only that I might afford them
consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse
extinguished every hope. I had been the author of
unalterable evils; and I lived in daily fear, lest the monster
whom I had created should perpetrate some new
wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over,
and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by
its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the
past. There was always scope for fear, so long as anything I
loved remained behind. My abhorrence of this fiend cannot
be conceived. When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth,
my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to
extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed.
When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my hatred and
revenge burst all bounds of moderation. I would have made
a pilgrimage to the highest peak of the Andes, could I, when
there, have precipitated him to their base. I wished to see
him again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of
abhorrence on his head, and avenge the deaths of William
and Justine.
Our house was the house of mourning. My father’s health
was deeply shaken by the horror of the recent events.
Elizabeth was sad and desponding; she no longer took
delight in her ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to
her sacrilege toward the dead; eternal woe and tears she
then thought was the just tribute she should pay to
innocence so blasted and destroyed. She was no longer that
happy creature, who in earlier youth wandered with me on
the banks of the lake, and talked with ecstasy of our future
prospects. The first of those sorrows which are sent to wean
us from the earth, had visited her, and its dimming influence
quenched her dearest smiles.
 “When I reflect, my dear cousin,” said she, “on the
miserable death of Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world
and its works as they before appeared to me. Before, I
looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice, that I read in
books or heard from others, as tales of ancient days, or
imaginary evils; at least they were remote, and more familiar
to reason than to the imagination; but now misery has come
home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each
other’s blood. Yet I am certainly unjust. Everybody believed
that poor girl to be guilty; and if she could have committed
the crime for which she suffered, assuredly she would have
been the most depraved of human creatures. For the sake of
a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor
and friend, a child whom she had nursed from its birth, and
appeared to love as if it had been her own! I could not
consent to the death of any human being; but certainly I
should have thought such a creature unfit to remain in the
society of men. But she was innocent. I know, I feel she was
innocent; you are of the same opinion, and that confirms
me. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth,
who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I
were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which
thousands are crowding, and endeavouring to plunge me
into the abyss. William and Justine were assassinated, and
the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free, and
perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer
on the scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change
places with such a wretch.”
I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not
in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer. Elizabeth read
my anguish in my countenance, and kindly taking my hand,
said, “My dearest friend, you must calm yourself. These
events have affected me, God knows how deeply; but I am
not so wretched as you are. There is an expression of
despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance,
that makes me tremble. Dear Victor, banish these dark
passions. Remember the friends around you, who centre all
their hopes in you. Have we lost the power of rendering you
happy? Ah! while we love—while we are true to each other,
here in this land of peace and beauty, your native country,
we may reap every tranquil blessing—what can disturb our
peace?”
And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized
before every other gift of fortune, suffice to chase away the
fiend that lurked in my heart? Even as she spoke I drew near
to her, as if in terror; lest at that very moment the destroyer
had been near to rob me of her.
Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of
earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe: the
very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by
a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The
wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden
brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had pierced it,
and to die—was but a type of me.
Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that
overwhelmed me: but sometimes the whirlwind passions of
my soul drove me to seek, by bodily exercise and by change
of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations. It was
during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home,
and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys,
sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to
forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.
My wanderings were directed towards the valley of
Chamounix. I had visited it frequently during my boyhood.
Six years had passed since then: I was a wreck—but nought
had changed in those savage and enduring scenes.
I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I
afterwards hired a mule, as the more surefooted, and least
liable to receive injury on these rugged roads. The weather
was fine: it was about the middle of the month of August,
nearly two months after the death of Justine; that miserable
epoch from which I dated all my woe. The weight upon my
spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in the
ravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices that
overhung me on every side—the sound of the river raging
among the rocks, and the dashing of the waterfalls around,
spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence—and I ceased to
fear, or to bend before any being less almighty than that
which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in
their most terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, the
valley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing
character. Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny
mountains; the impetuous Arve, and cottages every here
and there peeping forth from among the trees, formed a
scene of singular beauty. But it was augmented and
rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and
shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as
belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race
of beings.
I passed the bridge of Pélissier, where the ravine, which
the river forms, opened before me, and I began to ascend
the mountain that overhangs it. Soon after I entered the
valley of Chamounix. This valley is more wonderful and
sublime, but not so beautiful and picturesque, as that of
Servox, through which I had just passed. The high and
snowy mountains were its immediate boundaries; but I saw
no more ruined castles and fertile fields. Immense glaciers
approached the road; I heard the rumbling thunder of the
falling avalanche, and marked the smoke of its passage.
Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent Mont Blanc, raised
itself from the surrounding aiguilles, and its tremendous
dôme overlooked the valley.
A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across
me during this journey. Some turn in the road, some new
object suddenly perceived and recognised, reminded me of
days gone by, and were associated with the lighthearted
gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothing
accents, and maternal nature bade me weep no more. Then
again the kindly influence ceased to act—I found myself
fettered again to grief, and indulging in all the misery of
reflection. Then I spurred on my animal, striving so to forget
the world, my fears, and, more than all, myself—or, in a more
desperate fashion, I alighted, and threw myself on the grass,
weighed down by horror and despair.
At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion
succeeded to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind
which I had endured. For a short space of time I remained at
the window, watching the pallid lightnings that played
above Mont Blanc, and listening to the rushing of the Arve,
which pursued its noisy way beneath. The same lulling
sounds acted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations: when I
placed my head upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it
as it came, and blest the giver of oblivion.
 CHAPTER X

I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood

beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a
glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the
summit of the hills, to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides
of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier
overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around;
and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of
imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves, or
the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the
avalanche, or the cracking, reverberated along the
mountains of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent
working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and
torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These
sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest
consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated
me from all littleness of feeling; and although they did not
remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. In some
degree, also, they diverted my mind from the thoughts over
which it had brooded for the last month. I retired to rest at
night; my slumbers, as it were, waited on and ministered to
by the assemblance of grand shapes which I had
contemplated during the day. They congregated round me;
the unstained snowy mountaintop, the glittering pinnacle,
the pine woods, and ragged bare ravine; the eagle, soaring
amidst the clouds—they all gathered round me, and bade
me be at peace.
 Where had they fled when the next morning I awoke? All
of soul-inspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy
clouded every thought. The rain was pouring in torrents, and
thick mists hid the summits of the mountains, so that I even
saw not the faces of those mighty friends. Still I would
penetrate their misty veil, and seek them in their cloudy
retreats. What were rain and storm to me? My mule was
brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit
of Montanvert. I remembered the effect that the view of the
tremendous and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my
mind when I first saw it. It had then filled me with a sublime
ecstasy, that gave wings to the soul, and allowed it to soar
from the obscure world to light and joy. The sight of the
awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of
solemnising my mind, and causing me to forget the passing
cares of life. I determined to go without a guide, for I was
well acquainted with the path, and the presence of another
would destroy the solitary grandeur of the scene.
The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual
and short windings, which enable you to surmount the
perpendicularity of the mountain. It is a scene terrifically
desolate. In a thousand spots the traces of the winter
avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and
strewed on the ground; some entirely destroyed, others
bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain, or
transversely upon other trees. The path, as you ascend
higher, is intersected by ravines of snow, down which stones
continually roll from above; one of them is particularly
dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even speaking in
a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw
destruction upon the head of the speaker. The pines are not
tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre, and add an air of
severity to the scene. I looked on the valley beneath; vast
mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it, and
curling in thick wreaths around the opposite mountains,
whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain
poured from the dark sky, and added to the melancholy
impression I received from the objects around me. Alas! why
does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in
the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our
impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we
might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind
that blows, and a chance word or scene that that word may
convey to us.

We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.

We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!

It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent.

For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of
ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding
mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I
descended upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven,
rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and
interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost
a league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it.
The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From
the side where I now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite,
at the distance of a league; and above it rose Mont Blanc, in
awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on
this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the
vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains,
whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and
glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My
heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with
something like joy; I exclaimed, “Wandering spirits, if indeed
ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me
this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away
from the joys of life.”
As I said this, I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at
some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman
speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among
which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he
approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled:
a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me;
but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains.
I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous
and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I
trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his
approach, and then close with him in mortal combat. He
approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish,
combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly
ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But
I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first
deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to
overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation
and contempt.
“Devil,” I exclaimed, “do you dare approach me? and do
not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on
your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! or rather, stay,
that I may trample you to dust! and, oh! that I could, with
the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those
victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!”
“I expected this reception,” said the dæmon. “All men hate
the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable
beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and
spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only
dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to
kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty
towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of
mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave
them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw
of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your
remaining friends.”
“Abhorred monster! fiend that thou art! the tortures of hell
are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil!
you reproach me with your creation; come on, then, that I
may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed.”
My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by
all the feelings which can arm one being against the
existence of another.
He easily eluded me, and said—
“Be calm! I entreat you to hear me, before you give vent to
your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered
enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although
it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me,
and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more
powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine; my
joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in
opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild
and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also
perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh,
Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample
upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency
and affection, is most due. Remember, that I am thy
creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen
angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably
excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a
fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”
“Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community
between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try
our strength in a fight, in which one must fall.”
“How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to
turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy
goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein: I was
benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am
I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me;
what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe
me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains
and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here
many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a
dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not
grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me
than your fellow-beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of
my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves
for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor
me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable,
and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power
to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it
only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and
your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up
in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved,
and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale: when you have
heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge
that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by
human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own
defence before they are condemned. Listen to me,
Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would,
with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh,
praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare
me: listen to me; and then, if you can, and if you will,
destroy the work of your hands.”
“Why do you call to my remembrance,” I rejoined,
“circumstances, of which I shudder to reflect, that I have
been the miserable origin and author? Cursed be the day,
abhorred devil, in which you first saw light! Cursed
(although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you! You
have made me wretched beyond expression. You have left
me no power to consider whether I am just to you, or not.
Begone! relieve me from the sight of your detested form.”
“Thus I relieve thee, my creator,” he said, and placed his
hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with
violence; “thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still
thou canst listen to me, and grant me thy compassion. By
the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you.
Hear my tale; it is long and strange, and the temperature of
this place is not fitting to your fine sensations; come to the
hut upon the mountain. The sun is yet high in the heavens;
before it descends to hide itself behind yon snowy
precipices, and illuminate another world, you will have
heard my story, and can decide. On you it rests, whether I
quit forever the neighbourhood of man, and lead a harmless
life, or become the scourge of your fellow-creatures, and the
author of your own speedy ruin.”
As he said this, he led the way across the ice: I followed.
My heart was full, and I did not answer him; but, as I
proceeded, I weighed the various arguments that he had
used, and determined at least to listen to his tale. I was
partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my
resolution. I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer
of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial
of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt what the duties
of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to
render him happy before I complained of his wickedness.
These motives urged me to comply with his demand. We
crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended the opposite rock.
The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend: we
entered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a
heavy heart, and depressed spirits. But I consented to listen;
and, seating myself by the fire which my odious companion
had lighted, he thus began his tale.
 CHAPTER XI

“It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the

original era of my being: all the events of that period appear
confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations
seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same
time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to
distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By
degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my
nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then
came over me, and troubled me; but hardly had I felt this,
when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light
poured in upon me again. I walked, and, I believe,
descended; but I presently found a great alteration in my
sensations. Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded
me, impervious to my touch or sight; but I now found that I
could wander on at liberty, with no obstacles which I could
not either surmount or avoid. The light became more and
more oppressive to me; and, the heat wearying me as I
walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade. This
was the forest near Ingolstadt; and here I lay by the side of a
brook resting from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by
hunger and thirst. This roused me from my nearly dormant
state, and I ate some berries which I found hanging on the
trees, or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst at the brook;
and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.
“It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half-
frightened, as it were instinctively, finding myself so
desolate. Before I had quitted your apartment, on a
sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some clothes;
but these were insufficient to secure me from the dews of
night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and
could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all
sides, I sat down and wept.
“Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave me
a sensation of pleasure. I started up, and beheld a radiant
form rise from among the trees.2 I gazed with a kind of
wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened my path; and I
again went out in search of berries. I was still cold, when
under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I
covered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No distinct
ideas occupied my mind; all was confused. I felt light, and
hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rung
in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me: the
only object that I could distinguish was the bright moon, and
I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.
“Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of
night had greatly lessened, when I began to distinguish my
sensations from each other. I gradually saw plainly the clear
stream that supplied me with drink, and the trees that
shaded me with their foliage. I was delighted when I first
discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my
ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals
who had often intercepted the light from my eyes. I began
also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that
surrounded me, and to perceive the boundaries of the
radiant roof of light which canopied me. Sometimes I tried to
imitate the pleasant songs of the birds, but was unable.
Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own
mode, but the uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke
from me frightened me into silence again.
“The moon had disappeared from the night, and again,
with a lessened form, showed itself, while I still remained in
the forest. My sensations had, by this time, become distinct,
and my mind received every day additional ideas. My eyes
became accustomed to the light, and to perceive objects in
their right forms; I distinguished the insect from the herb,
and, by degrees, one herb from another. I found that the
sparrow uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the
blackbird and thrush were sweet and enticing.
“One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire
which had been left by some wandering beggars, and was
overcome with delight at the warmth I experienced from it.
In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly
drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought,
that the same cause should produce such opposite effects! I
examined the materials of the fire, and to my joy found it to
be composed of wood. I quickly collected some branches;
but they were wet, and would not burn. I was pained at this,
and sat still watching the operation of the fire. The wet wood
which I had placed near the heat dried, and itself became
inflamed. I reflected on this; and, by touching the various
branches, I discovered the cause, and busied myself in
collecting a great quantity of wood, that I might dry it, and
have a plentiful supply of fire. When night came on, and
brought sleep with it, I was in the greatest fear lest my fire
should be extinguished. I covered it carefully with dry wood
and leaves, and placed wet branches upon it; and then,
spreading my cloak, I lay on the ground, and sunk into
sleep.
“It was morning when I awoke, and my first care was to
visit the fire. I uncovered it, and a gentle breeze quickly
fanned it into a flame. I observed this also, and contrived a
fan of branches, which roused the embers when they were
nearly extinguished. When night came again, I found, with
pleasure, that the fire gave light as well as heat; and that
the discovery of this element was useful to me in my food;
for I found some of the offals that the travellers had left had
been roasted, and tasted much more savoury than the
berries I gathered from the trees. I tried, therefore, to dress
my food in the same manner, placing it on the live embers. I
found that the berries were spoiled by this operation, and
the nuts and roots much improved.
“Food, however, became scarce; and I often spent the
whole day searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the
pangs of hunger. When I found this, I resolved to quit the
place that I had hitherto inhabited, to seek for one where the
few wants I experienced would be more easily satisfied. In
this emigration, I exceedingly lamented the loss of the fire
which I had obtained through accident, and knew not how to
reproduce it. I gave several hours to the serious
consideration of this difficulty; but I was obliged to
relinquish all attempt to supply it; and, wrapping myself up
in my cloak, I struck across the wood towards the setting
sun. I passed three days in these rambles, and at length
discovered the open country. A great fall of snow had taken
place the night before, and the fields were of one uniform
white; the appearance was disconsolate, and I found my feet
chilled by the cold damp substance that covered the
ground.
“It was about seven in the morning, and I longed to obtain
food and shelter; at length I perceived a small hut, on a
rising ground, which had doubtless been built for the
convenience of some shepherd. This was a new sight to me;
and I examined the structure with great curiosity. Finding
the door open, I entered. An old man sat in it, near a fire,
over which he was preparing his breakfast. He turned on
hearing a noise; and, perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and,
quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which
his debilitated form hardly appeared capable. His
appearance, different from any I had ever before seen, and
his flight, somewhat surprised me. But I was enchanted by
the appearance of the hut: here the snow and rain could not
penetrate; the ground was dry; and it presented to me then
as exquisite and divine a retreat as Pandæmonium appeared
to the dæmons of hell after their sufferings in the lake of
fire. I greedily devoured the remnants of the shepherd’s
breakfast, which consisted of bread, cheese, milk, and wine;
the latter, however, I did not like. Then, overcome by
fatigue, I lay down among some straw, and fell asleep.
“It was noon when I awoke; and, allured by the warmth of
the sun, which shone brightly on the white ground, I
determined to recommence my travels; and, depositing the
remains of the peasant’s breakfast in a wallet I found, I
proceeded across the fields for several hours, until at sunset
I arrived at a village. How miraculous did this appear! the
huts, the neater cottages, and stately houses, engaged my
admiration by turns. The vegetables in the gardens, the milk
and cheese that I saw placed at the windows of some of the
cottages, allured my appetite. One of the best of these I
entered; but I had hardly placed my foot within the door,
before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted.
The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me,
until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of
missile weapons, I escaped to the open country, and
fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making
a wretched appearance after the palaces I had beheld in the
village. This hovel, however, joined a cottage of a neat and
pleasant appearance; but, after my late dearly bought
experience, I dared not enter it. My place of refuge was
constructed of wood, but so low, that I could with difficulty
sit upright in it. No wood, however, was placed on the earth,
which formed the floor, but it was dry; and although the
wind entered it by innumerable chinks, I found it an
agreeable asylum from the snow and rain.
“Here then I retreated, and lay down happy to have found
a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the
season, and still more from the barbarity of man.
“As soon as morning dawned, I crept from my kennel, that I
might view the adjacent cottage, and discover if I could
remain in the habitation I had found. It was situated against
the back of the cottage, and surrounded on the sides which
were exposed by a pigsty and a clear pool of water. One part
was open, and by that I had crept in; but now I covered
every crevice by which I might be perceived with stones and
wood, yet in such a manner that I might move them on
occasion to pass out: all the light I enjoyed came through
the sty, and that was sufficient for me.
“Having thus arranged my dwelling, and carpeted it with
clean straw, I retired; for I saw the figure of a man at a
distance, and I remembered too well my treatment the night
before, to trust myself in his power. I had first, however,
provided for my sustenance for that day, by a loaf of coarse
bread, which I purloined, and a cup with which I could drink,
more conveniently than from my hand, of the pure water
which flowed by my retreat. The floor was a little raised, so
that it was kept perfectly dry, and by its vicinity to the
chimney of the cottage it was tolerably warm.
“Being thus provided, I resolved to reside in this hovel,
until something should occur which might alter my
determination. It was indeed a paradise, compared to the
bleak forest, my former residence, the rain-dropping
branches, and dank earth. I ate my breakfast with pleasure,
and was about to remove a plank to procure myself a little
water, when I heard a step, and looking through a small
chink, I beheld a young creature, with a pail on her head,
passing before my hovel. The girl was young, and of gentle
demeanour, unlike what I have since found cottagers and
farmhouse servants to be. Yet she was meanly dressed, a
coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb;
her fair hair was plaited, but not adorned: she looked
patient, yet sad. I lost sight of her; and in about a quarter of
an hour she returned, bearing the pail, which was now partly
filled with milk. As she walked along, seemingly
incommoded by the burden, a young man met her, whose
countenance expressed a deeper despondence. Uttering a
few sounds with an air of melancholy, he took the pail from
her head, and bore it to the cottage himself. She followed,
and they disappeared. Presently I saw the young man again,
with some tools in his hand, cross the field behind the
cottage; and the girl was also busied, sometimes in the
house, and sometimes in the yard.
“On examining my dwelling, I found that one of the
windows of the cottage had formerly occupied a part of it,
but the panes had been filled up with wood. In one of these
was a small and almost imperceptible chink, through which
the eye could just penetrate. Through this crevice a small
room was visible, whitewashed and clean, but very bare of
furniture. In one corner, near a small fire, sat an old man,
leaning his head on his hands in a disconsolate attitude. The
young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage; but
presently she took something out of a drawer, which
employed her hands, and she sat down beside the old man,
who, taking up an instrument, began to play, and to produce
sounds sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the
nightingale. It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch!
who had never beheld aught beautiful before. The silver hair
and benevolent countenance of the aged cottager won my
reverence, while the gentle manners of the girl enticed my
love. He played a sweet mournful air, which I perceived drew
tears from the eyes of his amiable companion, of which the
old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly; he then
pronounced a few sounds, and the fair creature, leaving her
work, knelt at his feet. He raised her, and smiled with such
kindness and affection, that I felt sensations of a peculiar
and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of pain and
pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, either
from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from
the window, unable to bear these emotions.
“Soon after this the young man returned, bearing on his
shoulders a load of wood. The girl met him at the door,
helped to relieve him of his burden, and, taking some of the
fuel into the cottage, placed it on the fire; then she and the
youth went apart into a nook of the cottage, and he showed
her a large loaf and a piece of cheese. She seemed pleased,
and went into the garden for some roots and plants, which
she placed in water, and then upon the fire. She afterwards
continued her work, whilst the young man went into the
garden, and appeared busily employed in digging and
pulling up roots. After he had been employed thus about an
hour, the young woman joined him, and they entered the
cottage together.
“The old man had, in the mean time, been pensive; but,
on the appearance of his companions, he assumed a more
cheerful air, and they sat down to eat. The meal was quickly
despatched. The young woman was again occupied in
arranging the cottage; the old man walked before the
cottage in the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of
the youth. Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast
between these two excellent creatures. One was old, with
silver hairs and a countenance beaming with benevolence
and love: the younger was slight and graceful in his figure,
and his features were moulded with the finest symmetry; yet
his eyes and attitude expressed the utmost sadness and
despondency. The old man returned to the cottage; and the
youth, with tools different from those he had used in the
morning, directed his steps across the fields.
“Night quickly shut in; but, to my extreme wonder, I found
that the cottagers had a means of prolonging light by the
use of tapers, and was delighted to find that the setting of
the sun did not put an end to the pleasure I experienced in
watching my human neighbours. In the evening, the young
girl and her companion were employed in various
occupations which I did not understand; and the old man
again took up the instrument which produced the divine
sounds that had enchanted me in the morning. So soon as
he had finished, the youth began, not to play, but to utter
sounds that were monotonous, and neither resembling the
harmony of the old man’s instrument nor the songs of the
birds: I since found that he read aloud, but at that time I
knew nothing of the science of words or letters.
“The family, after having been thus occupied for a short
time, extinguished their lights, and retired, as I conjectured,
to rest.”
 CHAPTER XII

“I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep. I thought of the

occurrences of the day. What chiefly struck me was the
gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them,
but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had
suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and
resolved, whatever course of conduct I might hereafter think
it right to pursue, that for the present I would remain quietly
in my hovel, watching, and endeavouring to discover the
motives which influenced their actions.
“The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun. The
young woman arranged the cottage, and prepared the food;
and the youth departed after the first meal.
“This day was passed in the same routine as that which
preceded it. The young man was constantly employed out of
doors, and the girl in various laborious occupations within.
The old man, whom I soon perceived to be blind, employed
his leisure hours on his instrument or in contemplation.
Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the
younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable
companion. They performed towards him every little office of
affection and duty with gentleness; and he rewarded them
by his benevolent smiles.
“They were not entirely happy. The young man and his
companion often went apart, and appeared to weep. I saw
no cause for their unhappiness; but I was deeply affected by
it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange
that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched.
Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy? They possessed
a delightful house (for such it was in my eyes) and every
luxury; they had a fire to warm them when chill, and
delicious viands when hungry; they were dressed in
excellent clothes; and, still more, they enjoyed one
another’s company and speech, interchanging each day
looks of affection and kindness. What did their tears imply?
Did they really express pain? I was at first unable to solve
these questions; but perpetual attention and time explained
to me many appearances which were at first enigmatic.
“A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of
the causes of the uneasiness of this amiable family: it was
poverty; and they suffered that evil in a very distressing
degree. Their nourishment consisted entirely of the
vegetables of their garden, and the milk of one cow, which
gave very little during the winter, when its masters could
scarcely procure food to support it. They often, I believe,
suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially the
two younger cottagers; for several times they placed food
before the old man, when they reserved none for
themselves.
“This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been
accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store
for my own consumption; but when I found that in doing this
I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained, and satisfied
myself with berries, nuts, and roots, which I gathered from a
neighbouring wood.
“I discovered also another means through which I was
enabled to assist their labours. I found that the youth spent
a great part of each day in collecting wood for the family
fire; and, during the night, I often took his tools, the use of
which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing
sufficient for the consumption of several days.
“I remember, the first time that I did this, the young
woman, when she opened the door in the morning, appeared
greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood on the
outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the
youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I observed,
with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but
spent it in repairing the cottage, and cultivating the garden.
“By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I
found that these people possessed a method of
communicating their experience and feelings to one another
by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke
sometimes, produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in
the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed
a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become
acquainted with it. But I was baffled in every attempt I made
for this purpose. Their pronunciation was quick; and the
words they uttered, not having any apparent connection
with visible objects, I was unable to discover any clue by
which I could unravel the mystery of their reference. By
great application, however, and after having remained
during the space of several revolutions of the moon in my
hovel, I discovered the names that were given to some of the
most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and applied the
words, ‘fire,’ ‘milk,’ ‘bread,’ and ‘wood.’ I learned also the
names of the cottagers themselves. The youth and his
companion had each of them several names, but the old
man had only one, which was ‘father.’ The girl was called
‘sister,’ or ‘Agatha’; and the youth ‘Felix,’ ‘brother,’ or ‘son.’ I
cannot describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas
appropriated to each of these sounds, and was able to
pronounce them. I distinguished several other words,
without being able as yet to understand or apply them; such
as ‘good,’ ‘dearest,’ ‘unhappy.’
“I spent the winter in this manner. The gentle manners
and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me:
when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they
rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys. I saw few human beings
beside them; and if any other happened to enter the
cottage, their harsh manners and rude gait only enhanced
to me the superior accomplishments of my friends. The old
man, I could perceive, often endeavoured to encourage his
children, as sometimes I found that he called them, to cast
off their melancholy. He would talk in a cheerful accent, with
an expression of goodness that bestowed pleasure even
upon me. Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes
filled with tears, which she endeavoured to wipe away
unperceived; but I generally found that her countenance
and tone were more cheerful after having listened to the
exhortations of her father. It was not thus with Felix. He was
always the saddest of the group; and, even to my
unpractised senses, he appeared to have suffered more
deeply than his friends. But if his countenance was more
sorrowful, his voice was more cheerful than that of his sister,
especially when he addressed the old man.
“I could mention innumerable instances, which, although
slight, marked the dispositions of these amiable cottagers. In
the midst of poverty and want, Felix carried with pleasure to
his sister the first little white flower that peeped out from
beneath the snowy ground. Early in the morning, before she
had risen, he cleared away the snow that obstructed her
path to the milk-house, drew water from the well, and
brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his perpetual
astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an
invisible hand. In the day, I believe, he worked sometimes
for a neighbouring farmer, because he often went forth, and
did not return until dinner, yet brought no wood with him. At
other times he worked in the garden; but, as there was little
to do in the frosty season, he read to the old man and
Agatha.
“This reading had puzzled me extremely at first; but, by
degrees, I discovered that he uttered many of the same
sounds when he read, as when he talked. I conjectured,
therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which
he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend these
also; but how was that possible, when I did not even
understand the sounds for which they stood as signs? I
improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not
sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation, although I
applied my whole mind to the endeavour: for I easily
perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself
to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had
first become master of their language; which knowledge
might enable me to make them overlook the deformity of my
figure; for with this also the contrast perpetually presented
to my eyes had made me acquainted.
“I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their
grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I
terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first
I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who
was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully
convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was
filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and
mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal
effects of this miserable deformity.
“As the sun became warmer, and the light of day longer,
the snow vanished, and I beheld the bare trees and the
black earth. From this time Felix was more employed; and
the heart-moving indications of impending famine
disappeared. Their food, as I afterwards found, was coarse,
but it was wholesome; and they procured a sufficiency of it.
Several new kinds of plants sprung up in the garden, which
they dressed; and these signs of comfort increased daily as
the season advanced.
“The old man, leaning on his son, walked each day at
noon, when it did not rain, as I found it was called when the
heavens poured forth its waters. This frequently took place;
but a high wind quickly dried the earth, and the season
became far more pleasant than it had been.
“My mode of life in my hovel was uniform. During the
morning, I attended the motions of the cottagers; and when
they were dispersed in various occupations, I slept: the
remainder of the day was spent in observing my friends.
When they had retired to rest, if there was any moon, or the
night was starlight, I went into the woods, and collected my
own food and fuel for the cottage. When I returned, as often
as it was necessary, I cleared their path from the snow, and
performed those offices that I had seen done by Felix. I
afterwards found that these labours, performed by an
invisible hand, greatly astonished them; and once or twice I
heard them, on these occasions, utter the words ‘good’
‘spirit,’ ‘wonderful’; but I did not then understand the
signification of these terms.
“My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to
discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures; I
was inquisitive to know why Felix appeared so miserable,
and Agatha so sad. I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might
be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving
people. When I slept, or was absent, the forms of the
venerable blind father, the gentle Agatha, and the excellent
Felix, flitted before me. I looked upon them as superior
beings, who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I
formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting
myself to them, and their reception of me. I imagined that
they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanour
and conciliating words, I should first win their favour, and
afterwards their love.
“These thoughts exhilarated me, and led me to apply with
fresh ardour to the acquiring the art of language. My organs
were indeed harsh, but supple; and although my voice was
very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced
such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the
ass and the lapdog; yet surely the gentle ass whose
intentions were affectionate, although his manners were
rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration.
“The pleasant showers and genial warmth of spring greatly
altered the aspect of the earth. Men, who before this change
seemed to have been hid in caves, dispersed themselves,
and were employed in various arts of cultivation. The birds
sang in more cheerful notes, and the leaves began to bud
forth on the trees. Happy, happy earth! fit habitation for
gods, which, so short a time before, was bleak, damp, and
unwholesome. My spirits were elevated by the enchanting
appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my
memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by
bright rays of hope, and anticipations of joy.”
 CHAPTER XIII

“I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall

relate events, that impressed me with feelings which, from
what I had been, have made me what I am.
“Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine, and
the skies cloudless. It surprised me, that what before was
desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most
beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and
refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and a thousand
sights of beauty.
“It was on one of these days, when my cottagers
periodically rested from labour—the old man played on his
guitar, and the children listened to him—that I observed the
countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression; he
sighed frequently; and once his father paused in his music,
and I conjectured by his manner that he enquired the cause
of his son’s sorrow. Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and the
old man was recommencing his music, when someone
tapped at the door.
“It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a
countryman as a guide. The lady was dressed in a dark suit,
and covered with a thick black veil. Agatha asked a
question; to which the stranger only replied by pronouncing,
in a sweet accent, the name of Felix. Her voice was musical,
but unlike that of either of my friends. On hearing this word,
Felix came up hastily to the lady; who, when she saw him,
threw up her veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic
beauty and expression. Her hair of a shining raven black,
and curiously braided; her eyes were dark, but gentle,
although animated; her features of a regular proportion, and
her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a
lovely pink.
“Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her,
every trait of sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly
expressed a degree of ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly
have believed it capable; his eyes sparkled, as his cheek
flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I thought him as
beautiful as the stranger. She appeared affected by different
feelings; wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she held
out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously, and called
her, as well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did
not appear to understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to
dismount, and dismissing her guide, conducted her into the
cottage. Some conversation took place between him and his
father; and the young stranger knelt at the old man’s feet,
and would have kissed his hand, but he raised her, and
embraced her affectionately.
“I soon perceived, that although the stranger uttered
articulate sounds, and appeared to have a language of her
own, she was neither understood by, nor herself understood,
the cottagers. They made many signs which I did not
comprehend; but I saw that her presence diffused gladness
through the cottage, dispelling their sorrow as the sun
dissipates the morning mists. Felix seemed peculiarly happy,
and with smiles of delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha,
the ever-gentle Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely
stranger; and, pointing to her brother, made signs which
appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful until
she came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their
countenances, expressed joy, the cause of which I did not
comprehend. Presently I found, by the frequent recurrence
of some sound which the stranger repeated after them, that
she was endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea
instantly occurred to me, that I should make use of the same
instructions to the same end. The stranger learned about
twenty words at the first lesson, most of them, indeed, were
those which I had before understood, but I profited by the
others.
“As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early.
When they separated, Felix kissed the hand of the stranger,
and said, ‘Good night, sweet Safie.’ He sat up much longer,
conversing with his father; and, by the frequent repetition of
her name, I conjectured that their lovely guest was the
subject of their conversation. I ardently desired to
understand them, and bent every faculty towards that
purpose, but found it utterly impossible.
“The next morning Felix went out to his work; and, after
the usual occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian
sat at the feet of the old man, and, taking his guitar, played
some airs so entrancingly beautiful, that they at once drew
tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her
voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away, like a
nightingale of the woods.
“When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha,
who at first declined it. She played a simple air, and her
voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but unlike the
wondrous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared
enraptured, and said some words, which Agatha
endeavoured to explain to Safie, and by which he appeared
to wish to express that she bestowed on him the greatest
delight by her music.
“The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the
sole alteration, that joy had taken place of sadness in the
countenances of my friends. Safie was always gay and
happy; she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of
language, so that in two months I began to comprehend
most of the words uttered by my protectors.
“In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with
herbage, and the green banks interspersed with
innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars
of pale radiance among the moonlight woods; the sun
became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my
nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to me,
although they were considerably shortened by the late
setting and early rising of the sun; for I never ventured
abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same
treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I
entered.
“My days were spent in close attention, that I might more
speedily master the language; and I may boast that I
improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood
very little, and conversed in broken accents, whilst I
comprehended and could imitate almost every word that
was spoken.
“While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of
letters, as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened
before me a wide field for wonder and delight.
“The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney’s
Ruins of Empires. I should not have understood the purport
of this book, had not Felix, in reading it, given very minute
explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the
declamatory style was framed in imitation of the eastern
authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge
of history, and a view of the several empires at present
existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the
manners, governments, and religions of the different nations
of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the
stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of
the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans—of their
subsequent degenerating—of the decline of that mighty
empire; of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the
discovery of the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie
over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.
“These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange
feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous,
and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at
one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another,
as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a
great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that
can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many
on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a
condition more abject than that of the blind mole or
harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one
man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there
were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice
and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with
disgust and loathing.
“Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new
wonders to me. While I listened to the instructions which
Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange system of
human society was explained to me. I heard of the division
of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty; of rank,
descent, and noble blood.
“The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned
that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow-creatures
were, high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man
might be respected with only one of these advantages; but,
without either, he was considered, except in very rare
instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his
powers for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of
my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I
knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of
property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously
deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature
as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsist upon
coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less
injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I
looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a
monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and
whom all men disowned?
“I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections
inflicted upon me: I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only
increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained
in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the
sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!
“Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the
mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock.
I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling; but
I learned that there was but one means to overcome the
sensation of pain, and that was death—a state which I feared
yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good feelings,
and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my
cottagers; but I was shut out from intercourse with them,
except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I
was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than
satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my
fellows. The gentle words of Agatha, and the animated
smiles of the charming Arabian, were not for me. The mild
exhortations of the old man, and the lively conversation of
the loved Felix, were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!
“Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply.
I heard of the difference of sexes; and the birth and growth
of children; how the father doted on the smiles of the infant,
and the lively sallies of the older child; how all the life and
cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge;
how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge; of
brother, sister, and all the various relationships which bind
one human being to another in mutual bonds.
“But where were my friends and relations? No father had
watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with
smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now
a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing.
From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in
height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being
resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me.
What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered
only with groans.
 “I will soon explain to what these feelings tended; but
allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited
in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and
wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and
reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent,
half painful self-deceit, to call them).”
 CHAPTER XIV

“Some time elapsed before I learned the history of my

friends. It was one which could not fail to impress itself
deeply on my mind, unfolding as it did a number of
circumstances, each interesting and wonderful to one so
utterly inexperienced as I was.
“The name of the old man was De Lacey. He was
descended from a good family in France, where he had lived
for many years in affluence, respected by his superiors, and
beloved by his equals. His son was bred in the service of his
country; and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the highest
distinction. A few months before my arrival, they had lived
in a large and luxurious city, called Paris, surrounded by
friends, and possessed of every enjoyment which virtue,
refinement of intellect, or taste, accompanied by a moderate
fortune, could afford.
“The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He
was a Turkish merchant, and had inhabited Paris for many
years, when, for some reason which I could not learn, he
became obnoxious to the government. He was seized and
cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from
Constantinople to join him. He was tried, and condemned to
death. The injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all
Paris was indignant; and it was judged that his religion and
wealth, rather than the crime alleged against him, had been
the cause of his condemnation.
“Felix had accidentally been present at the trial; his horror
and indignation were uncontrollable, when he heard the
decision of the court. He made, at that moment, a solemn
vow to deliver him, and then looked around for the means.
After many fruitless attempts to gain admittance to the
prison, he found a strongly grated window in an unguarded
part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the
unfortunate Muhammadan; who, loaded with chains, waited
in despair the execution of the barbarous sentence. Felix
visited the grate at night, and made known to the prisoner
his intentions in his favour. The Turk, amazed and delighted,
endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer by promises
of reward and wealth. Felix rejected his offers with
contempt; yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was
allowed to visit her father, and who, by her gestures,
expressed her lively gratitude, the youth could not help
owning to his own mind, that the captive possessed a
treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard.
“The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his
daughter had made on the heart of Felix, and endeavoured
to secure him more entirely in his interests by the promise of
her hand in marriage, so soon as he should be conveyed to a
place of safety. Felix was too delicate to accept this offer; yet
he looked forward to the probability of the event as to the
consummation of his happiness.
“During the ensuing days, while the preparations were
going forward for the escape of the merchant, the zeal of
Felix was warmed by several letters that he received from
this lovely girl, who found means to express her thoughts in
the language of her lover by the aid of an old man, a servant
of her father, who understood French. She thanked him in
the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her
parent; and at the same time she gently deplored her own
fate.
“I have copies of these letters; for I found means, during
my residence in the hovel, to procure the implements of
writing; and the letters were often in the hands of Felix or
Agatha. Before I depart, I will give them to you, they will
prove the truth of my tale; but at present, as the sun is
already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat the
substance of them to you.
“Safie related, that her mother was a Christian Arab,
seized and made a slave by the Turks; recommended by her
beauty, she had won the heart of the father of Safie, who
married her. The young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic
terms of her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the
bondage to which she was now reduced. She instructed her
daughter in the tenets of her religion, and taught her to
aspire to higher powers of intellect, and an independence of
spirit, forbidden to the female followers of Muhammad. This
lady died; but her lessons were indelibly impressed on the
mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again
returning to Asia, and being immured within the walls of a
haram, allowed only to occupy herself with infantile
amusements, ill suited to the temper of her soul, now
accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue.
The prospect of marrying a Christian, and remaining in a
country where women were allowed to take a rank in society,
was enchanting to her.
“The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed; but, on
the night previous to it, he quitted his prison, and before
morning was distant many leagues from Paris. Felix had
procured passports in the name of his father, sister, and
himself. He had previously communicated his plan to the
former, who aided the deceit by quitting his house, under
the pretence of a journey, and concealed himself, with his
daughter, in an obscure part of Paris.
“Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons,
and across Mont Cenis to Leghorn, where the merchant had
decided to wait a favourable opportunity of passing into
some part of the Turkish dominions.
“Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment
of his departure, before which time the Turk renewed his
promise that she should be united to his deliverer; and Felix
remained with them in expectation of that event; and in the
mean time he enjoyed the society of the Arabian, who
exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest affection.
They conversed with one another through the means of an
interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks;
and Safie sang to him the divine airs of her native country.
“The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place, and
encouraged the hopes of the youthful lovers, while in his
heart he had formed far other plans. He loathed the idea
that his daughter should be united to a Christian; but he
feared the resentment of Felix, if he should appear
lukewarm; for he knew that he was still in the power of his
deliverer, if he should choose to betray him to the Italian
state which they inhabited. He revolved a thousand plans by
which he should be enabled to prolong the deceit until it
might be no longer necessary, and secretly to take his
daughter with him when he departed. His plans were
facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris.
“The government of France were greatly enraged at the
escape of their victim, and spared no pains to detect and
punish his deliverer. The plot of Felix was quickly
discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were thrown into
prison. The news reached Felix, and roused him from his
dream of pleasure. His blind and aged father, and his gentle
sister, lay in a noisome dungeon, while he enjoyed the free
air, and the society of her whom he loved. This idea was
torture to him. He quickly arranged with the Turks, that if the
latter should find a favourable opportunity for escape before
Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a boarder
at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely
Arabian, he hastened to Paris, and delivered himself up to
the vengeance of the law, hoping to free De Lacey and
Agatha by this proceeding.
“He did not succeed. They remained confined for five
months before the trial took place; the result of which
deprived them of their fortune, and condemned them to a
perpetual exile from their native country.
“They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in
Germany, where I discovered them. Felix soon learned that
the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family endured
such unheard-of oppression, on discovering that his
deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin, became a
traitor to good feeling and honour, and had quitted Italy
with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of
money, to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future
maintenance.
“Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix,
and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable
of his family. He could have endured poverty; and while this
distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it: but
the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie,
were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of
the Arabian now infused new life into his soul.
“When the news reached Leghorn, that Felix was deprived
of his wealth and rank, the merchant commanded his
daughter to think no more of her lover, but to prepare to
return to her native country. The generous nature of Safie
was outraged by this command; she attempted to
expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily,
reiterating his tyrannical mandate.
“A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s
apartment, and told her hastily, that he had reason to
believe that his residence at Leghorn had been divulged,
and that he should speedily be delivered up to the French
government; he had, consequently hired a vessel to convey
him to Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few
hours. He intended to leave his daughter under the care of a
confidential servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater
part of his property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn.
“When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of
conduct that it would become her to pursue in this
emergency. A residence in Turkey was abhorrent to her; her
religion and her feelings were alike adverse to it. By some
papers of her father, which fell into her hands, she heard of
the exile of her lover, and learnt the name of the spot where
he then resided. She hesitated some time, but at length she
formed her determination. Taking with her some jewels that
belonged to her, and a sum of money, she quitted Italy with
an attendant, a native of Leghorn, but who understood the
common language of Turkey, and departed for Germany.
“She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from
the cottage of De Lacey, when her attendant fell
dangerously ill. Safie nursed her with the most devoted
affection; but the poor girl died, and the Arabian was left
alone, unacquainted with the language of the country, and
utterly ignorant of the customs of the world. She fell,
however, into good hands. The Italian had mentioned the
name of the spot for which they were bound; and, after her
death, the woman of the house in which they had lived took
care that Safie should arrive in safety at the cottage of her
lover.”
 CHAPTER XV

“Such was the history of my beloved cottagers. It impressed

me deeply. I learned, from the views of social life which it
developed, to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the
vices of mankind.
“As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil; benevolence
and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within
me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so
many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.
But, in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I
must not omit a circumstance which occurred in the
beginning of the month of August of the same year.
“One night, during my accustomed visit to the
neighbouring wood, where I collected my own food, and
brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground
a leathern portmanteau, containing several articles of dress
and some books. I eagerly seized the prize, and returned
with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in
the language, the elements of which I had acquired at the
cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of
Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. The possession
of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now
continually studied and exercised my mind upon these
histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary
occupations.
“I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books.
They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings,
that sometimes raised me to ecstacy, but more frequently
sunk me into the lowest dejection. In the Sorrows of Werter,
besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so
many opinions are canvassed, and so many lights thrown
upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects, that I
found in it a never-ending source of speculation and
astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners it
described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings,
which had for their object something out of self, accorded
well with my experience among my protectors, and with the
wants which were forever alive in my own bosom. But I
thought Werter himself a more divine being than I had ever
beheld or imagined; his character contained no pretension,
but it sunk deep. The disquisitions upon death and suicide
were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to
enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the
opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without
precisely understanding it.
“As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own
feelings and condition. I found myself similar, yet at the
same time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I
read, and to whose conversation I was a listener. I
sympathised with, and partly understood them, but I was
unformed in mind; I was dependent on none, and related to
none. ‘The path of my departure was free;’ and there was
none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous, and
my stature gigantic? What did this mean? Who was I? What
was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These
questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve
them.
“The volume of Plutarch’s Lives, which I possessed,
contained the histories of the first founders of the ancient
republics. This book had a far different effect upon me from
the Sorrows of Werter. I learned from Werter’s imaginations
despondency and gloom: but Plutarch taught me high
thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my
own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages.
Many things I read surpassed my understanding and
experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms,
wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas.
But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns, and large
assemblages of men. The cottage of my protectors had been
the only school in which I had studied human nature; but
this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I
read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or
massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue
rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I
understood the signification of those terms, relative as they
were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced
by these feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable
lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to
Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors
caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind;
perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made
by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should
have been imbued with different sensations.
“But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper
emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which
had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every
feeling of wonder and awe, that the picture of an omnipotent
God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I
often referred the several situations, as their similarity
struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by
no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far
different from mine in every other respect. He had come
forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and
prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he
was allowed to converse with, and acquire knowledge from,
beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless,
and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter
emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed
the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within
me.
 “Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these
feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel, I discovered
some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken
from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them; but now
that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were
written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your
journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You
minutely described in these papers every step you took in
the progress of your work; this history was mingled with
accounts of domestic occurrences. You, doubtless, recollect
these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them
which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole
detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which
produced it, is set in view; the minutest description of my
odious and loathsome person is given, in language which
painted your own horrors, and rendered mine indelible. I
sickened as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I
exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a
monster so hideous that even you turned from me in
disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after
his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more
horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his
companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him;
but I am solitary and abhorred.’
“These were the reflections of my hours of despondency
and solitude; but when I contemplated the virtues of the
cottagers, their amiable and benevolent dispositions, I
persuaded myself that when they should become
acquainted with my admiration of their virtues, they would
compassionate me, and overlook my personal deformity.
Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous,
who solicited their compassion and friendship? I resolved, at
least, not to despair, but in every way to fit myself for an
interview with them which would decide my fate. I
postponed this attempt for some months longer; for the
importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread
lest I should fail. Besides, I found that my understanding
improved so much with every day’s experience, that I was
unwilling to commence this undertaking until a few more
months should have added to my sagacity.
“Several changes, in the mean time, took place in the
cottage. The presence of Safie diffused happiness among its
inhabitants; and I also found that a greater degree of plenty
reigned there. Felix and Agatha spent more time in
amusement and conversation, and were assisted in their
labours by servants. They did not appear rich, but they were
contented and happy; their feelings were serene and
peaceful, while mine became every day more tumultuous.
Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly
what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true;
but it vanished, when I beheld my person reflected in water,
or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image
and that inconstant shade.
“I endeavoured to crush these fears, and to fortify myself
for the trial which in a few months I resolved to undergo;
and sometimes I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by
reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to
fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathising with my
feelings, and cheering my gloom; their angelic
countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was all a
dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows, nor shared my thoughts;
I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his
Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me and, in
the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him.
“Autumn passed thus. I saw, with surprise and grief, the
leaves decay and fall, and nature again assume the barren
and bleak appearance it had worn when I first beheld the
woods and the lovely moon. Yet I did not heed the bleakness
of the weather; I was better fitted by my conformation for
the endurance of cold than heat. But my chief delights were
the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay apparel of
summer; when those deserted me, I turned with more
attention towards the cottagers. Their happiness was not
decreased by the absence of summer. They loved, and
sympathised with one another; and their joys, depending on
each other, were not interrupted by the casualties that took
place around them. The more I saw of them, the greater
became my desire to claim their protection and kindness;
my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable
creatures: to see their sweet looks directed towards me with
affection, was the utmost limit of my ambition. I dared not
think that they would turn them from me with disdain and
horror. The poor that stopped at their door were never driven
away. I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little
food or rest: I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not
believe myself utterly unworthy of it.
“The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the
seasons had taken place since I awoke into life. My
attention, at this time, was solely directed towards my plan
of introducing myself into the cottage of my protectors. I
revolved many projects; but that on which I finally fixed was,
to enter the dwelling when the blind old man should be
alone. I had sagacity enough to discover, that the unnatural
hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with
those who had formerly beheld me. My voice, although
harsh, had nothing terrible in it; I thought, therefore, that if,
in the absence of his children, I could gain the goodwill and
mediation of the old De Lacey, I might, by his means, be
tolerated by my younger protectors.
“One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that
strewed the ground, and diffused cheerfulness, although it
denied warmth, Safie, Agatha, and Felix departed on a long
country walk, and the old man, at his own desire, was left
alone in the cottage. When his children had departed, he
took up his guitar, and played several mournful but sweet
airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him
play before. At first his countenance was illuminated with
pleasure, but, as he continued, thoughtfulness and sadness
succeeded; at length, laying aside the instrument, he sat
absorbed in reflection.
“My heart beat quick; this was the hour and moment of
trial, which would decide my hopes, or realise my fears. The
servants were gone to a neighbouring fair. All was silent in
and around the cottage: it was an excellent opportunity; yet,
when I proceeded to execute my plan, my limbs failed me,
and I sank to the ground. Again I rose; and, exerting all the
firmness of which I was master, removed the planks which I
had placed before my hovel to conceal my retreat. The fresh
air revived me, and, with renewed determination, I
approached the door of their cottage.
“I knocked. ‘Who is there?’ said the old man—‘Come in.’
“I entered; ‘Pardon this intrusion,’ said I: ‘I am a traveller
in want of a little rest; you would greatly oblige me, if you
would allow me to remain a few minutes before the fire.’
“ ‘Enter,’ said De Lacey; ‘and I will try in what manner I can
relieve your wants; but, unfortunately, my children are from
home, and, as I am blind, I am afraid I shall find it difficult to
procure food for you.’
“ ‘Do not trouble yourself, my kind host, I have food; it is
warmth and rest only that I need.’
“I sat down, and a silence ensued. I knew that every
minute was precious to me, yet I remained irresolute in what
manner to commence the interview; when the old man
addressed me—
“ ‘By your language, stranger, I suppose you are my
countryman;—are you French?’
“ ‘No; but I was educated by a French family, and
understand that language only. I am now going to claim the
protection of some friends, whom I sincerely love, and of
whose favour I have some hopes.’
“ ‘Are they Germans?’
“ ‘No, they are French. But let us change the subject. I am
an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around, and I
have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people
to whom I go have never seen me, and know little of me. I
am full of fears; for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world
forever.’
“ ‘Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be
unfortunate; but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by
any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and
charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes; and if these friends
are good and amiable, do not despair.’
“ ‘They are kind—they are the most excellent creatures in
the world; but, unfortunately, they are prejudiced against
me. I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto
harmless, and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal
prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a
feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable
monster.’
“ ‘That is indeed unfortunate; but if you are really
blameless, cannot you undeceive them?’
“ ‘I am about to undertake that task; and it is on that
account that I feel so many overwhelming terrors. I tenderly
love these friends; I have, unknown to them, been for many
months in the habits of daily kindness towards them; but
they believe that I wish to injure them, and it is that
prejudice which I wish to overcome.’
“ ‘Where do these friends reside?’
“ ‘Near this spot.’
“The old man paused, and then continued, ‘If you will
unreservedly confide to me the particulars of your tale, I
perhaps may be of use in undeceiving them. I am blind, and
cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in
your words, which persuades me that you are sincere. I am
poor, and an exile; but it will afford me true pleasure to be in
any way serviceable to a human creature.’
“ ‘Excellent man! I thank you, and accept your generous
offer. You raise me from the dust by this kindness; and I trust
that, by your aid, I shall not be driven from the society and
sympathy of your fellow-creatures.’
 “ ‘Heaven forbid! even if you were really criminal; for that
can only drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to
virtue. I also am unfortunate; I and my family have been
condemned, although innocent: judge, therefore, if I do not
feel for your misfortunes.’
“ ‘How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor? From
your lips first have I heard the voice of kindness directed
towards me; I shall be forever grateful; and your present
humanity assures me of success with those friends whom I
am on the point of meeting.’
“ ‘May I know the names and residence of those friends?’
“I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision,
which was to rob me of, or bestow happiness on me forever. I
struggled vainly for firmness sufficient to answer him, but
the effort destroyed all my remaining strength; I sank on the
chair, and sobbed aloud. At that moment I heard the steps of
my younger protectors. I had not a moment to lose; but,
seizing the hand of the old man, I cried, ‘Now is the time!—
save and protect me! You and your family are the friends
whom I seek. Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!’
“ ‘Great God!’ exclaimed the old man, ‘who are you?’
“At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix,
Safie, and Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror
and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted; and
Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the
cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force
tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung: in a
transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground, and struck
me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from
limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sunk
within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him
on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain
and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general
tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.”
 CHAPTER XVI

“Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant,

did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so
wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken
possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and
revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage
and its inhabitants, and have glutted myself with their
shrieks and misery.
“When night came, I quitted my retreat, and wandered in
the wood; and now, no longer restrained by the fear of
discovery, I gave vent to my anguish in fearful howlings. I
was like a wild beast that had broken the toils; destroying
the objects that obstructed me, and ranging through the
wood with a stag-like swiftness. O! what a miserable night I
passed! the cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees
waved their branches above me: now and then the sweet
voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All,
save I, were at rest or in enjoyment: I, like the archfiend,
bore a hell within me; and, finding myself unsympathised
with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and
destruction around me, and then to have sat down and
enjoyed the ruin.
“But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure; I
became fatigued with excess of bodily exertion, and sank on
the damp grass in the sick impotence of despair. There was
none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity
or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my
enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war
against the species, and, more than all, against him who had
formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.
“The sun rose; I heard the voices of men, and knew that it
was impossible to return to my retreat during that day.
Accordingly I hid myself in some thick underwood,
determining to devote the ensuing hours to reflection on my
situation.
“The pleasant sunshine, and the pure air of day, restored
me to some degree of tranquillity; and when I considered
what had passed at the cottage, I could not help believing
that I had been too hasty in my conclusions. I had certainly
acted imprudently. It was apparent that my conversation
had interested the father in my behalf, and I was a fool in
having exposed my person to the horror of his children. I
ought to have familiarised the old De Lacey to me, and by
degrees to have discovered myself to the rest of his family,
when they should have been prepared for my approach. But
I did not believe my errors to be irretrievable; and, after
much consideration, I resolved to return to the cottage, seek
the old man, and by my representations win him to my party.
“These thoughts calmed me, and in the afternoon I sank
into a profound sleep; but the fever of my blood did not
allow me to be visited by peaceful dreams. The horrible
scene of the preceding day was forever acting before my
eyes; the females were flying, and the enraged Felix tearing
me from his father’s feet. I awoke exhausted; and, finding
that it was already night, I crept forth from my hiding-place,
and went in search of food.
“When my hunger was appeased, I directed my steps
towards the well-known path that conducted to the cottage.
All there was at peace. I crept into my hovel, and remained
in silent expectation of the accustomed hour when the
family arose. That hour passed, the sun mounted high in the
heavens, but the cottagers did not appear. I trembled
violently, apprehending some dreadful misfortune. The
inside of the cottage was dark, and I heard no motion; I
cannot describe the agony of this suspense.
“Presently two countrymen passed by; but, pausing near
the cottage, they entered into conversation, using violent
gesticulations; but I did not understand what they said, as
they spoke the language of the country, which differed from
that of my protectors. Soon after, however, Felix approached
with another man: I was surprised, as I knew that he had not
quitted the cottage that morning, and waited anxiously to
discover, from his discourse, the meaning of these unusual
appearances.
“ ‘Do you consider,’ said his companion to him, ‘that you
will be obliged to pay three months’ rent, and to lose the
produce of your garden? I do not wish to take any unfair
advantage, and I beg therefore that you will take some days
to consider of your determination.’
“ ‘It is utterly useless,’ replied Felix; ‘we can never again
inhabit your cottage. The life of my father is in the greatest
danger, owing to the dreadful circumstance that I have
related. My wife and my sister will never recover their horror.
I entreat you not to reason with me any more. Take
possession of your tenement, and let me fly from this place.’
“Felix trembled violently as he said this. He and his
companion entered the cottage, in which they remained for
a few minutes, and then departed. I never saw any of the
family of De Lacey more.
“I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a
state of utter and stupid despair. My protectors had
departed, and had broken the only link that held me to the
world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred
filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them; but,
allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my
mind towards injury and death. When I thought of my
friends, of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of
Agatha, and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these
thoughts vanished, and a gush of tears somewhat soothed
me. But again, when I reflected that they had spurned and
deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger; and, unable to
injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate
objects. As night advanced, I placed a variety of
combustibles around the cottage; and, after having
destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden, I waited
with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to
commence my operations.
“As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the
woods, and quickly dispersed the clouds that had loitered in
the heavens: the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche,
and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits, that burst all
bounds of reason and reflection. I lighted the dry branch of a
tree, and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, my
eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the
moon nearly touched. A part of its orb was at length hid, and
I waved my brand; it sunk, and, with a loud scream, I fired
the straw, and heath, and bushes, which I had collected. The
wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped
by the flames, which clung to it, and licked it with their
forked and destroying tongues.
“As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save
any part of the habitation, I quitted the scene, and sought
for refuge in the woods.
“And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend
my steps? I resolved to fly far from the scene of my
misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised, every country
must be equally horrible. At length the thought of you
crossed my mind. I learned from your papers that you were
my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more
fitness than to him who had given me life? Among the
lessons that Felix had bestowed upon Safie, geography had
not been omitted: I had learned from these the relative
situations of the different countries of the earth. You had
mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town; and
towards this place I resolved to proceed.
 “But how was I to direct myself? I knew that I must travel
in a southwesterly direction to reach my destination; but the
sun was my only guide. I did not know the names of the
towns that I was to pass through, nor could I ask information
from a single human being; but I did not despair. From you
only could I hope for succour, although towards you I felt no
sentiment but that of hatred. Unfeeling, heartless creator!
you had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and
then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of
mankind. But on you only had I any claim for pity and
redress, and from you I determined to seek that justice
which I vainly attempted to gain from any other being that
wore the human form.
“My travels were long, and the sufferings I endured
intense. It was late in autumn when I quitted the district
where I had so long resided. I travelled only at night, fearful
of encountering the visage of a human being. Nature
decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; rain and
snow poured around me; mighty rivers were frozen; the
surface of the earth was hard and chill, and bare, and I found
no shelter. Oh, earth! how often did I imprecate curses on
the cause of my being! The mildness of my nature had fled,
and all within me was turned to gall and bitterness. The
nearer I approached to your habitation, the more deeply did
I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart. Snow fell,
and the waters were hardened; but I rested not. A few
incidents now and then directed me, and I possessed a map
of the country; but I often wandered wide from my path. The
agony of my feelings allowed me no respite: no incident
occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract
its food; but a circumstance that happened when I arrived
on the confines of Switzerland, when the sun had recovered
its warmth, and the earth again began to look green,
confirmed in an especial manner the bitterness and horror of
my feelings.
 “I generally rested during the day, and travelled only
when I was secured by night from the view of man. One
morning, however, finding that my path lay through a deep
wood, I ventured to continue my journey after the sun had
risen; the day, which was one of the first of spring, cheered
even me by the loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess
of the air. I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that
had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by
the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne
away by them; and, forgetting my solitude and deformity,
dared to be happy. Soft tears again bedewed my cheeks, and
I even raised my humid eyes with thankfulness towards the
blessed sun which bestowed such joy upon me.
“I continued to wind among the paths of the wood, until I
came to its boundary, which was skirted by a deep and rapid
river, into which many of the trees bent their branches, now
budding with the fresh spring. Here I paused, not exactly
knowing what path to pursue, when I heard the sound of
voices, that induced me to conceal myself under the shade
of a cypress. I was scarcely hid, when a young girl came
running towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing,
as if she ran from someone in sport. She continued her
course along the precipitous sides of the river, when
suddenly her foot slipt, and she fell into the rapid stream. I
rushed from my hiding-place; and, with extreme labour from
the force of the current, saved her, and dragged her to
shore. She was senseless; and I endeavoured, by every
means in my power, to restore animation, when I was
suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic, who was
probably the person from whom she had playfully fled. On
seeing me, he darted towards me, and tearing the girl from
my arms, hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood. I
followed speedily, I hardly knew why; but when the man saw
me draw near, he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my
body, and fired. I sunk to the ground, and my injurer, with
increased swiftness, escaped into the wood.
 “This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved
a human being from destruction, and, as a recompense, I
now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound, which
shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and
gentleness, which I had entertained but a few moments
before, gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth.
Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to
all mankind. But the agony of my wound overcame me; my
pulses paused, and I fainted.
“For some weeks I led a miserable life in the woods,
endeavouring to cure the wound which I had received. The
ball had entered my shoulder, and I knew not whether it had
remained there or passed through; at any rate I had no
means of extracting it. My sufferings were augmented also
by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of
their infliction. My daily vows rose for revenge—a deep and
deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the
outrages and anguish I had endured.
“After some weeks my wound healed, and I continued my
journey. The labours I endured were no longer to be
alleviated by the bright sun or gentle breezes of spring; all
joy was but a mockery, which insulted my desolate state,
and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for the
enjoyment of pleasure.
“But my toils now drew near a close; and, in two months
from this time, I reached the environs of Geneva.
“It was evening when I arrived, and I retired to a hiding-
place among the fields that surround it, to meditate in what
manner I should apply to you. I was oppressed by fatigue
and hunger, and far too unhappy to enjoy the gentle
breezes of evening, or the prospect of the sun setting
behind the stupendous mountains of Jura.
“At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of
reflection, which was disturbed by the approach of a
beautiful child, who came running into the recess I had
chosen, with all the sportiveness of infancy. Suddenly, as I
gazed on him, an idea seized me, that this little creature was
unprejudiced, and had lived too short a time to have
imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I could seize him,
and educate him as my companion and friend, I should not
be so desolate in this peopled earth.
“Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed,
and drew him towards me. As soon as he beheld my form, he
placed his hands before his eyes, and uttered a shrill
scream: I drew his hand forcibly from his face, and said,
‘Child, what is the meaning of this? I do not intend to hurt
you; listen to me.’
“He struggled violently. ‘Let me go,’ he cried; ‘monster!
ugly wretch! you wish to eat me, and tear me to pieces—You
are an ogre—Let me go, or I will tell my papa.’
“ ‘Boy, you will never see your father again; you must
come with me.’
“ ‘Hideous monster! let me go. My papa is a Syndic—he is
M. Frankenstein—he will punish you. You dare not keep me.’
“ ‘Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy—to him
towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be
my first victim.’
“The child still struggled, and loaded me with epithets
which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to
silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.
“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with
exultation and hellish triumph: clapping my hands, I
exclaimed, ‘I, too, can create desolation; my enemy is not
invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a
thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’
“As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering
on his breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely
woman. In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted
me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark
eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but
presently my rage returned: I remembered that I was forever
deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could
bestow; and that she whose resemblance I contemplated
would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine
benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright.
“Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with
rage? I only wonder that at that moment, instead of venting
my sensations in exclamations and agony, I did not rush
among mankind, and perish in the attempt to destroy them.
“While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot
where I had committed the murder, and seeking a more
secluded hiding-place, I entered a barn which had appeared
to me to be empty. A woman was sleeping on some straw;
she was young: not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait
I held; but of an agreeable aspect, and blooming in the
loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of
those whose joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but
me. And then I bent over her, and whispered ‘Awake, fairest,
thy lover is near—he who would give his life but to obtain
one look of affection from thine eyes: my beloved, awake!’
“The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me.
Should she indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and
denounce the murderer? Thus would she assuredly act, if
her darkened eyes opened, and she beheld me. The thought
was madness; it stirred the fiend within me—not I, but she
shall suffer: the murder I have committed because I am
forever robbed of all that she could give me, she shall atone.
The crime had its source in her: be hers the punishment!
Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of
man, I had learned now to work mischief. I bent over her,
and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her
dress. She moved again, and I fled.
“For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had
taken place; sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes
resolved to quit the world and its miseries forever. At length
I wandered towards these mountains, and have ranged
through their immense recesses, consumed by a burning
passion which you alone can gratify. We may not part until
you have promised to comply with my requisition. I am
alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me; but
one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny
herself to me. My companion must be of the same species,
and have the same defects. This being you must create.”
 CHAPTER XVII

The being finished speaking, and fixed his looks upon me in

expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and
unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the
full extent of his proposition. He continued—
“You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in
the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my
being. This you alone can do; and I demand it of you as a
right which you must not refuse to concede.”
The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the
anger that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life
among the cottagers, and, as he said this, I could no longer
suppress the rage that burned within me.
“I do refuse it,” I replied; “and no torture shall ever extort
a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable
of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes.
Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness
might desolate the world. Begone! I have answered you; you
may torture me, but I will never consent.”
“You are in the wrong,” replied the fiend; “and, instead of
threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious
because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all
mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and
triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man
more than he pities me? You would not call it murder, if you
could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy
my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man,
when he contemns me? Let him live with me in the
interchange of kindness; and, instead of injury, I would
bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his
acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are
insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be
the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries: if
I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards
you my archenemy, because my creator, do I swear
inextinguishable hatred. Have a care: I will work at your
destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you
shall curse the hour of your birth.”
A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was
wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to
behold; but presently he calmed himself and proceeded—
“I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me;
for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess. If
any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should
return them an hundred and an hundred fold; for that one
creature’s sake, I would make peace with the whole kind!
But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised.
What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a
creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the
gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it
shall content me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off
from all the world; but on that account we shall be more
attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but
they will be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel.
Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude
towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the
sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my
request!”
I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible
consequences of my consent; but I felt that there was some
justice in his argument. His tale, and the feelings he now
expressed, proved him to be a creature of fine sensations;
and did I not as his maker, owe him all the portion of
happiness that it was in my power to bestow? He saw my
change of feeling, and continued—
“If you consent, neither you nor any other human being
shall ever see us again: I will go to the vast wilds of South
America. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the
lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries
afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of
the same nature as myself, and will be content with the
same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun
will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our food. The
picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you
must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of
power and cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards me, I
now see compassion in your eyes; let me seize the
favourable moment, and persuade you to promise what I so
ardently desire.”
“You propose,” replied I, “to fly from the habitations of
man, to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will
be your only companions. How can you, who long for the
love and sympathy of man, persevere in this exile? You will
return, and again seek their kindness, and you will meet
with their detestation; your evil passions will be renewed,
and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task of
destruction. This may not be: cease to argue the point, for I
cannot consent.”
“How inconstant are your feelings! but a moment ago you
were moved by my representations, and why do you again
harden yourself to my complaints? I swear to you, by the
earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that, with
the companion you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of
man, and dwell as it may chance, in the most savage of
places. My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with
sympathy! my life will flow quietly away, and, in my dying
moments, I shall not curse my maker.”
His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated
him, and sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when I
looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and
talked, my heart sickened, and my feelings were altered to
those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I
thought, that as I could not sympathise with him, I had no
right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness
which was yet in my power to bestow.
“You swear,” I said, “to be harmless; but have you not
already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably
make me distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will
increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your
revenge.”
“How is this? I must not be trifled with: and I demand an
answer. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice
must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the
cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing, of whose
existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices are the
children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will
necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I
shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become
linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am
now excluded.”
I paused some time to reflect on all he had related, and
the various arguments which he had employed. I thought of
the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the
opening of his existence, and the subsequent blight of all
kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors
had manifested towards him. His power and threats were not
omitted in my calculations: a creature who could exist in the
ice-caves of the glaciers, and hide himself from pursuit
among the ridges of inaccessible precipices, was a being
possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a
long pause of reflection, I concluded that the justice due
both to him and my fellow-creatures demanded of me that I
should comply with his request. Turning to him, therefore, I
said—
 “I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit
Europe forever, and every other place in the neighbourhood
of man, as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female
who will accompany you in your exile.”
“I swear,” he cried, “by the sun, and by the blue sky of
Heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if
you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold
me again. Depart to your home, and commence your
labours: I shall watch their progress with unutterable
anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall
appear.”
Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of
any change in my sentiments. I saw him descend the
mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and
quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice.
His tale had occupied the whole day; and the sun was
upon the verge of the horizon when he departed. I knew that
I ought to hasten my descent towards the valley, as I should
soon be encompassed in darkness; but my heart was heavy,
and my steps slow. The labour of winding among the little
paths of the mountains, and fixing my feet firmly as I
advanced, perplexed me, occupied as I was by the emotions
which the occurrences of the day had produced. Night was
far advanced, when I came to the halfway resting-place, and
seated myself beside the fountain. The stars shone at
intervals, as the clouds passed from over them; the dark
pines rose before me, and every here and there a broken
tree lay on the ground: it was a scene of wonderful
solemnity, and stirred strange thoughts within me. I wept
bitterly; and clasping my hands in agony, I exclaimed, “Oh!
stars and clouds, and winds, ye are all about to mock me: if
ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me
become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me
in darkness.”
These were wild and miserable thoughts; but I cannot
describe to you how the eternal twinkling of the stars
weighed upon me, and how I listened to every blast of wind,
as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me.
Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of
Chamounix; I took no rest, but returned immediately to
Geneva. Even in my own heart I could give no expression to
my sensations—they weighed on me with a mountain’s
weight, and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them.
Thus I returned home, and entering the house, presented
myself to the family. My haggard and wild appearance
awoke intense alarm; but I answered no question, scarcely
did I speak. I felt as if I were placed under a ban—as if I had
no right to claim their sympathies—as if never more might I
enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus I loved them
to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate myself
to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an
occupation made every other circumstance of existence
pass before me like a dream; and that thought only had to
me the reality of life.
 CHAPTER XVIII

Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to

Geneva; and I could not collect the courage to recommence
my work. I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend,
yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task
which was enjoined me. I found that I could not compose a
female without again devoting several months to profound
study and laborious disquisition. I had heard of some
discoveries having been made by an English philosopher,
the knowledge of which was material to my success, and I
sometimes thought of obtaining my father’s consent to visit
England for this purpose; but I clung to every pretence of
delay, and shrunk from taking the first step in an
undertaking whose immediate necessity began to appear
less absolute to me. A change indeed had taken place in me:
my health, which had hitherto declined, was now much
restored; and my spirits, when unchecked by the memory of
my unhappy promise, rose proportionably. My father saw this
change with pleasure, and he turned his thoughts towards
the best method of eradicating the remains of my
melancholy, which every now and then would return by fits,
and with a devouring blackness overcast the approaching
sunshine. At these moments I took refuge in the most
perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake alone in a
little boat, watching the clouds, and listening to the rippling
of the waves, silent and listless. But the fresh air and bright
sun seldom failed to restore me to some degree of
composure; and, on my return, I met the salutations of my
friends with a readier smile and a more cheerful heart.
It was after my return from one of these rambles, that my
father, calling me aside, thus addressed me:—
“I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have
resumed your former pleasures, and seem to be returning to
yourself. And yet you are still unhappy, and still avoid our
society. For some time I was lost in conjecture as to the
cause of this; but yesterday an idea struck me, and if it is
well founded, I conjure you to avow it. Reserve on such a
point would be not only useless, but draw down treble
misery on us all.”
I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father
continued—
“I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to
your marriage with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our
domestic comfort, and the stay of my declining years. You
were attached to each other from your earliest infancy; you
studied together, and appeared, in dispositions and tastes,
entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the experience
of man, that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my
plan, may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard
her as your sister, without any wish that she might become
your wife. Nay, you may have met with another whom you
may love; and, considering yourself as bound in honour to
Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery
which you appear to feel.”
“My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin
tenderly and sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited,
as Elizabeth does, my warmest admiration and affection. My
future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the
expectation of our union.”
“The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my
dear Victor, gives me more pleasure than I have for some
time experienced. If you feel thus, we shall assuredly be
happy, however present events may cast a gloom over us.
But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so strong a
hold of your mind, that I wish to dissipate. Tell me, therefore,
whether you object to an immediate solemnisation of the
marriage. We have been unfortunate, and recent events
have drawn us from that everyday tranquillity befitting my
years and infirmities. You are younger; yet I do not suppose,
possessed as you are of a competent fortune, that an early
marriage would at all interfere with any future plans of
honour and utility that you may have formed. Do not
suppose, however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you, or
that a delay on your part would cause me any serious
uneasiness. Interpret my words with candour, and answer
me, I conjure you, with confidence and sincerity.”
I listened to my father in silence, and remained for some
time incapable of offering any reply. I revolved rapidly in my
mind a multitude of thoughts, and endeavoured to arrive at
some conclusion. Alas! to me the idea of an immediate
union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay. I was
bound by a solemn promise, which I had not yet fulfilled,
and dared not break; or, if I did, what manifold miseries
might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I
enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging
round my neck, and bowing me to the ground. I must
perform my engagement, and let the monster depart with
his mate, before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of an
union from which I expected peace.
I remembered also the necessity imposed upon me of
either journeying to England, or entering into a long
correspondence with those philosophers of that country,
whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use
to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of
obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and
unsatisfactory: besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to
the idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my
father’s house, while in habits of familiar intercourse with
those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful accidents might
occur, the slightest of which would disclose a tale to thrill all
connected with me with horror. I was aware also that I should
often lose all self-command, all capacity of hiding the
harrowing sensations that would possess me during the
progress of my unearthly occupation. I must absent myself
from all I loved while thus employed. Once commenced, it
would quickly be achieved, and I might be restored to my
family in peace and happiness. My promise fulfilled, the
monster would depart forever. Or (so my fond fancy imaged)
some accident might meanwhile occur to destroy him, and
put an end to my slavery forever.
These feelings dictated my answer to my father. I
expressed a wish to visit England; but, concealing the true
reasons of this request, I clothed my desires under a guise
which excited no suspicion, while I urged my desire with an
earnestness that easily induced my father to comply. After
so long a period of an absorbing melancholy, that resembled
madness in its intensity and effects, he was glad to find that
I was capable of taking pleasure in the idea of such a
journey, and he hoped that change of scene and varied
amusement would, before my return, have restored me
entirely to myself.
The duration of my absence was left to my own choice; a
few months, or at most a year, was the period contemplated.
One paternal kind precaution he had taken to ensure my
having a companion. Without previously communicating
with me, he had, in concert with Elizabeth, arranged that
Clerval should join me at Strasburgh. This interfered with
the solitude I coveted for the prosecution of my task; yet at
the commencement of my journey the presence of my friend
could in no way be an impediment, and truly I rejoiced that
thus I should be saved many hours of lonely, maddening
reflection. Nay, Henry might stand between me and the
intrusion of my foe. If I were alone, would he not at times
force his abhorred presence on me, to remind me of my task,
or to contemplate its progress?
 To England, therefore, I was bound, and it was understood
that my union with Elizabeth should take place immediately
on my return. My father’s age rendered him extremely
averse to delay. For myself, there was one reward I promised
myself from my detested toils—one consolation for my
unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day
when, enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim
Elizabeth, and forget the past in my union with her.
I now made arrangements for my journey; but one feeling
haunted me, which filled me with fear and agitation. During
my absence I should leave my friends unconscious of the
existence of their enemy, and unprotected from his attacks,
exasperated as he might be by my departure. But he had
promised to follow me wherever I might go; and would he
not accompany me to England? This imagination was
dreadful in itself, but soothing, inasmuch as it supposed the
safety of my friends. I was agonised with the idea of the
possibility that the reverse of this might happen. But
through the whole period during which I was the slave of my
creature, I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of
the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated
that the fiend would follow me, and exempt my family from
the danger of his machinations.
It was in the latter end of September that I again quitted
my native country. My journey had been my own suggestion,
and Elizabeth, therefore, acquiesced: but she was filled with
disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the
inroads of misery and grief. It had been her care which
provided me a companion in Clerval—and yet a man is blind
to a thousand minute circumstances, which call forth a
woman’s sedulous attention. She longed to bid me hasten
my return—a thousand conflicting emotions rendered her
mute, as she bade me a tearful silent farewell.
I threw myself into the carriage that was to convey me
away, hardly knowing whither I was going, and careless of
what was passing around. I remembered only, and it was
with a bitter anguish that I reflected on it, to order that my
chemical instruments should be packed to go with me. Filled
with dreary imaginations, I passed through many beautiful
and majestic scenes; but my eyes were fixed and
unobserving. I could only think of the bourne of my travels,
and the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured.
After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I
traversed many leagues, I arrived at Strasburgh, where I
waited two days for Clerval. He came. Alas, how great was
the contrast between us! He was alive to every new scene;
joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more
happy when he beheld it rise, and recommence a new day.
He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape,
and the appearances of the sky. “This is what it is to live,” he
cried, “now I enjoy existence! But you, my dear
Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful!”
In truth, I was occupied by gloomy thoughts, and neither
saw the descent of the evening star, nor the golden sunrise
reflected in the Rhine.—And you, my friend, would be far
more amused with the journal of Clerval, who observed the
scenery with an eye of feeling and delight, than in listening
to my reflections. I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse
that shut up every avenue to enjoyment.
We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from
Strasburgh to Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for
London. During this voyage, we passed many willowy
islands, and saw several beautiful towns. We stayed a day at
Manheim, and, on the fifth from our departure from
Strasburgh, arrived at Mayence. The course of the Rhine
below Mayence becomes much more picturesque. The river
descends rapidly, and winds between hills, not high, but
steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles
standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black
woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed,
presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you
view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous
precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and, on the
sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards, with
green sloping banks, and a meandering river, and populous
towns occupy the scene.
We travelled at the time of the vintage, and heard the
song of the labourers, as we glided down the stream. Even I,
depressed in mind, and my spirits continually agitated by
gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. I lay at the bottom of
the boat, and, as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed
to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger.
And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of
Henry? He felt as if he had been transported to Fairyland,
and enjoyed a happiness seldom tasted by man. “I have
seen,” he said, “the most beautiful scenes of my own
country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where
the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the
water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would
cause a gloomy and mournful appearance, were it not for
the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay
appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest,
when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water, and gave you an
idea of what the waterspout must be on the great ocean;
and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain,
where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an
avalanche, and where their dying voices are still said to be
heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the
mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud: but this
country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The
mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange;
but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river, that I
never before saw equalled. Look at that castle which
overhangs yon precipice; and that also on the island, almost
concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and
now that group of labourers coming from among their vines;
and that village half hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh,
surely, the spirit that inhabits and guards this place has a
soul more in harmony with man, than those who pile the
glacier, or retire to the inaccessible peaks of the mountains
of our own country.”
Clerval! beloved friend! even now it delights me to record
your words, and to dwell on the praise of which you are so
eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the “very
poetry of nature.” His wild and enthusiastic imagination was
chastened by the sensibility of his heart. His soul overflowed
with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that
devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach
us to look for only in the imagination. But even human
sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind. The
scenery of external nature, which others regard only with
admiration, he loved with ardour:—

—“The sounding cataract

Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to him
An appetite; a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrow’d from the eye”3

And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely

being lost forever? Has this mind, so replete with ideas,
imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a
world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator;—
has this mind perished? Does it now only exist in my
memory? No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought,
and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still
visits and consoles your unhappy friend.
Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words are but
a slight tribute to the unexampled worth of Henry, but they
soothe my heart, overflowing with the anguish which his
remembrance creates. I will proceed with my tale.
 Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland;
and we resolved to post the remainder of our way; for the
wind was contrary, and the stream of the river was too
gentle to aid us.
Our journey here lost the interest arising from beautiful
scenery; but we arrived in a few days at Rotterdam, whence
we proceeded by sea to England. It was on a clear morning,
in the latter days of December, that I first saw the white
cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames presented a new
scene; they were flat, but fertile, and almost every town was
marked by the remembrance of some story. We saw Tilbury
Fort, and remembered the Spanish armada; Gravesend,
Woolwich, and Greenwich, places which I had heard of even
in my country.
At length we saw the numerous steeples of London,
St. Paul’s towering above all, and the Tower famed in English
history.
 CHAPTER XIX

London was our present point of rest; we determined to

remain several months in this wonderful and celebrated city.
Clerval desired the intercourse of the men of genius and
talent who flourished at this time; but this was with me a
secondary object; I was principally occupied with the means
of obtaining the information necessary for the completion of
my promise, and quickly availed myself of the letters of
introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to the
most distinguished natural philosophers.
If this journey had taken place during my days of study
and happiness, it would have afforded me inexpressible
pleasure. But a blight had come over my existence, and I
only visited these people for the sake of the information
they might give me on the subject in which my interest was
so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me; when
alone, I could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and
earth; the voice of Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat
myself into a transitory peace. But busy uninteresting joyous
faces brought back despair to my heart. I saw an
insurmountable barrier placed between me and my
fellowmen; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William
and Justine; and to reflect on the events connected with
those names filled my soul with anguish.
But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self; he was
inquisitive, and anxious to gain experience and instruction.
The difference of manners which he observed was to him an
inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement. He was
also pursuing an object he had long had in view. His design
was to visit India, in the belief that he had in his knowledge
of its various languages, and in the views he had taken of its
society, the means of materially assisting the progress of
European colonisation and trade. In Britain only could he
further the execution of his plan. He was forever busy; and
the only check to his enjoyments was my sorrowful and
dejected mind. I tried to conceal this as much as possible,
that I might not debar him from the pleasures natural to one,
who was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by any
care or bitter recollection. I often refused to accompany him,
alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone. I
now also began to collect the materials necessary for my
new creation, and this was to me like the torture of single
drops of water continually falling on the head. Every thought
that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every
word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver,
and my heart to palpitate.
After passing some months in London, we received a letter
from a person in Scotland, who had formerly been our visiter
at Geneva. He mentioned the beauties of his native country,
and asked us if those were not sufficient allurements to
induce us to prolong our journey as far north as Perth, where
he resided. Clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation;
and I, although I abhorred society, wished to view again
mountains and streams, and all the wondrous works with
which Nature adorns her chosen dwelling-places.
We had arrived in England at the beginning of October,
and it was now February. We accordingly determined to
commence our journey towards the north at the expiration
of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to
follow the great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor,
Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, resolving to
arrive at the completion of this tour about the end of July. I
packed up my chemical instruments, and the materials I had
collected, resolving to finish my labours in some obscure
nook in the northern highlands of Scotland.
We quitted London on the 27th of March, and remained a
few days at Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest. This
was a new scene to us mountaineers; the majestic oaks, the
quantity of game, and the herds of stately deer, were all
novelties to us.
From thence we proceeded to Oxford. As we entered this
city, our minds were filled with the remembrance of the
events that had been transacted there more than a century
and a half before. It was here that Charles I had collected his
forces. This city had remained faithful to him, after the
whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of
parliament and liberty. The memory of that unfortunate
king, and his companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent
Goring, his queen, and son, gave a peculiar interest to every
part of the city, which they might be supposed to have
inhabited. The spirit of elder days found a dwelling here, and
we delighted to trace its footsteps. If these feelings had not
found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of the city
had yet in itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration.
The colleges are ancient and picturesque; the streets are
almost magnificent; and the lovely Isis, which flows beside it
through meadows of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a
placid expanse of waters, which reflects its majestic
assemblage of towers, and spires, and domes, embosomed
among aged trees.
I enjoyed this scene; and yet my enjoyment was
embittered both by the memory of the past, and the
anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful
happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited
my mind; and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of
what is beautiful in nature, or the study of what is excellent
and sublime in the productions of man, could always interest
my heart, and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am
a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then
that I should survive to exhibit, what I shall soon cease to
be—a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to
others, and intolerable to myself.
We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling
among its environs, and endeavouring to identify every spot
which might relate to the most animating epoch of English
history. Our little voyages of discovery were often prolonged
by the successive objects that presented themselves. We
visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden, and the field on
which that patriot fell. For a moment my soul was elevated
from its debasing and miserable fears, to contemplate the
divine ideas of liberty and self-sacrifice, of which these
sights were the monuments and the remembrancers. For an
instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me
with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my
flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my
miserable self.
We left Oxford with regret, and proceeded to Matlock,
which was our next place of rest. The country in the
neighbourhood of this village resembled, to a greater
degree, the scenery of Switzerland; but everything is on a
lower scale, and the green hills want the crown of distant
white Alps, which always attend on the piny mountains of
my native country. We visited the wondrous cave, and the
little cabinets of natural history, where the curiosities are
disposed in the same manner as in the collections at Servox
and Chamounix. The latter name made me tremble, when
pronounced by Henry; and I hastened to quit Matlock, with
which that terrible scene was thus associated.
From Derby, still journeying northward, we passed two
months in Cumberland and Westmorland. I could now almost
fancy myself among the Swiss mountains. The little patches
of snow which yet lingered on the northern sides of the
mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the rocky streams,
were all familiar and dear sights to me. Here also we made
some acquaintances, who almost contrived to cheat me into
happiness. The delight of Clerval was proportionably greater
than mine; his mind expanded in the company of men of
talent, and he found in his own nature greater capacities
and resources than he could have imagined himself to have
possessed while he associated with his inferiors. “I could
pass my life here,” said he to me; “and among these
mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the
Rhine.”
But he found that a traveller’s life is one that includes
much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are forever on
the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds
himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for
something new, which again engages his attention, and
which also he forsakes for other novelties.
We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland
and Westmorland, and conceived an affection for some of
the inhabitants, when the period of our appointment with
our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on.
For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my
promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the
dæmon’s disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland,
and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued
me, and tormented me at every moment from which I might
otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited for my
letters with feverish impatience: if they were delayed, I was
miserable, and overcome by a thousand fears; and when
they arrived, and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my
father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate.
Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me, and might
expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When
these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a
moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him
from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had
committed some great crime, the consciousness of which
haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a
horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime.
 I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet
that city might have interested the most unfortunate being.
Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford: for the antiquity of
the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the beauty and
regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle,
and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur’s
Seat, St. Bernard’s Well, and the Pentland Hills,
compensated him for the change, and filled him with
cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at
the termination of my journey.
We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar,
St. Andrew’s, and along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where
our friend expected us. But I was in no mood to laugh and
talk with strangers, or enter into their feelings or plans with
the good humour expected from a guest; and accordingly I
told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone.
“Do you,” said I, “enjoy yourself, and let this be our
rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not
interfere with my motions, I entreat you: leave me to peace
and solitude for a short time; and when I return, I hope it will
be with a lighter heart, more congenial to your own temper.”
Henry wished to dissuade me; but, seeing me bent on this
plan, ceased to remonstrate. He entreated me to write often.
“I had rather be with you,” he said, “in your solitary rambles,
than with these Scotch people, whom I do not know: hasten
then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself
somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence.”
Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some
remote spot of Scotland, and finish my work in solitude. I did
not doubt but that the monster followed me, and would
discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he
might receive his companion.
With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands,
and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene
of my labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being
hardly more than a rock, whose high sides were continually
beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely
affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for
its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt
and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare.
Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries,
and even fresh water, was to be procured from the main
land, which was about five miles distant.
On the whole island there were but three miserable huts,
and one of these was vacant when I arrived. This I hired. It
contained but two rooms, and these exhibited all the
squalidness of the most miserable penury. The thatch had
fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the door was off its
hinges. I ordered it to be repaired, bought some furniture,
and took possession; an incident which would, doubtless,
have occasioned some surprise, had not all the senses of the
cottagers been benumbed by want and squalid poverty. As it
was, I lived ungazed at and unmolested, hardly thanked for
the pittance of food and clothes which I gave; so much does
suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men.
In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the
evening, when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony
beach of the sea, to listen to the waves as they roared and
dashed at my feet. It was a monotonous yet ever-changing
scene. I thought of Switzerland; it was far different from this
desolate and appalling landscape. Its hills are covered with
vines, and its cottages are scattered thickly in the plains. Its
fair lakes reflect a blue and gentle sky; and, when troubled
by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of a lively
infant, when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean.
In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first
arrived; but, as I proceeded in my labour, it became every
day more horrible and irksome to me. Sometimes I could not
prevail on myself to enter my laboratory for several days;
and at other times I toiled day and night in order to
complete my work. It was, indeed, a filthy process in which I
was engaged. During my first experiment, a kind of
enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my
employment; my mind was intently fixed on the
consummation of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the
horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood,
and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.
Thus situated, employed in the most detestable
occupation, immersed in a solitude where nothing could for
an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which I
was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew restless
and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor.
Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to
raise them, lest they should encounter the object which I so
much dreaded to behold. I feared to wander from the sight of
my fellow-creatures, lest when alone he should come to
claim his companion.
In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already
considerably advanced. I looked towards its completion with
a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself
to question, but which was intermixed with obscure
forebodings of evil, that made my heart sicken in my bosom.
 CHAPTER XX

I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the
moon was just rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light
for my employment, and I remained idle, in a pause of
consideration of whether I should leave my labour for the
night, or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention
to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to me, which led
me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three
years before I was engaged in the same manner, and had
created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated
my heart, and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse. I
was now about to form another being, of whose dispositions I
was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times
more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake,
in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the
neighbourhood of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she
had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a
thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with
a compact made before her creation. They might even hate
each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own
deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence
for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She
also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty
of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone,
exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by
one of his own species.
Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts
of the new world, yet one of the first results of those
sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would be children,
and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth,
who might make the very existence of the species of man a
condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right, for my
own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting
generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of
the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his
fiendish threats: but now, for the first time, the wickedness
of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that
future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness
had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps,
of the existence of the whole human race.
I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on
looking up, I saw, by the light of the moon, the dæmon at
the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed
on me, where I sat fulfilling the task which he had allotted to
me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had loitered in
forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and
desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress, and
claim the fulfilment of my promise.
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost
extent of malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of
madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and
trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I
was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on
whose future existence he depended for happiness, and,
with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew.
I left the room, and, locking the door, made a solemn vow
in my own heart never to resume my labours; and then, with
trembling steps, I sought my own apartment. I was alone;
none were near me to dissipate the gloom, and relieve me
from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries.
Several hours passed, and I remained near my window
gazing on the sea; it was almost motionless, for the winds
were hushed, and all nature reposed under the eye of the
quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone specked the water,
and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of
voices, as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the
silence, although I was hardly conscious of its extreme
profundity, until my ear was suddenly arrested by the
paddling of oars near the shore, and a person landed close
to my house.
In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as
if someone endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from
head to foot; I felt a presentiment of who it was, and wished
to rouse one of the peasants who dwelt in a cottage not far
from mine; but I was overcome by the sensation of
helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you in
vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was
rooted to the spot.
Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the
passage; the door opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded
appeared. Shutting the door, he approached me, and said, in
a smothered voice—
“You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it
that you intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have
endured toil and misery: I left Switzerland with you; I crept
along the shores of the Rhine, among its willow islands, and
over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt many months in
the heaths of England, and among the deserts of Scotland. I
have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do
you dare destroy my hopes?”
“Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create
another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness.”
“Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved
yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I
have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make
you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you.
You are my creator, but I am your master;—obey!”
“The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your
power is arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act
of wickedness; but they confirm me in a determination of not
creating you a companion in vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set
loose upon the earth a dæmon, whose delight is in death
and wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your words will
only exasperate my rage.”
The monster saw my determination in my face, and
gnashed his teeth in the impotence of anger. “Shall each
man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast
have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection,
and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man! you
may hate; but beware! your hours will pass in dread and
misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from
you your happiness forever. Are you to be happy, while I
grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast
my other passions; but revenge remains—revenge,
henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you,
my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on
your misery. Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore
powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may
sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries
you inflict.”
“Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds
of malice. I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no
coward to bend beneath words. Leave me; I am inexorable.”
“It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your
wedding-night.”
I started forward, and exclaimed, “Villain! before you sign
my death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe.”
I would have seized him; but he eluded me, and quitted
the house with precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in
his boat, which shot across the waters with an arrowy
swiftness, and was soon lost amidst the waves.
All was again silent; but his words rung in my ears. I
burned with rage to pursue the murderer of my peace, and
precipitate him into the ocean. I walked up and down my
room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination conjured
up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I
not followed him, and closed with him in mortal strife? But I
had suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course
towards the main land. I shuddered to think who might be
the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge. And then
I thought again of his words—“I will be with you on your
wedding-night.” That then was the period fixed for the
fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die, and at
once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not
move me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved
Elizabeth—of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should
find her lover so barbarously snatched from her—tears, the
first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes,
and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter
struggle.
The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean;
my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness
when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I
left the house, the horrid scene of the last night’s
contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I
almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and
my fellow-creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the
fact stole across me. I desired that I might pass my life on
that barren rock, wearily, it is true, but uninterrupted by any
sudden shock of misery. If I returned, it was to be sacrificed,
or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a
dæmon whom I had myself created.
I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated
from all it loved, and miserable in the separation. When it
became noon, and the sun rose higher, I lay down on the
grass, and was overpowered by a deep sleep. I had been
awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were
agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery. The
sleep into which I now sunk refreshed me; and when I
awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings
like myself, and I began to reflect upon what had passed
with greater composure; yet still the words of the fiend rung
in my ears like a death-knell, they appeared like a dream,
yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.
The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore,
satisfying my appetite, which had become ravenous, with an
oaten cake, when I saw a fishing-boat land close to me, and
one of the men brought me a packet; it contained letters
from Geneva, and one from Clerval, entreating me to join
him. He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly
where he was; that letters from the friends he had formed in
London desired his return to complete the negotiation they
had entered into for his Indian enterprise. He could not any
longer delay his departure; but as his journey to London
might be followed, even sooner than he now conjectured, by
his longer voyage, he entreated me to bestow as much of my
society on him as I could spare. He besought me, therefore,
to leave my solitary isle, and to meet him at Perth, that we
might proceed southwards together. This letter in a degree
recalled me to life, and I determined to quit my island at the
expiration of two days.
Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on
which I shuddered to reflect: I must pack up my chemical
instruments; and for that purpose I must enter the room
which had been the scene of my odious work, and I must
handle those utensils, the sight of which was sickening to
me. The next morning, at daybreak, I summoned sufficient
courage, and unlocked the door of my laboratory. The
remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed,
lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had
mangled the living flesh of a human being. I paused to
collect myself, and then entered the chamber. With
trembling hand I conveyed the instruments out of the room;
but I reflected that I ought not to leave the relics of my work
to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants; and I
accordingly put them into a basket, with a great quantity of
stones, and, laying them up, determined to throw them into
the sea that very night; and in the mean time I sat upon the
beach, employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical
apparatus.
Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that
had taken place in my feelings since the night of the
appearance of the dæmon. I had before regarded my
promise with a gloomy despair, as a thing that, with
whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if
a film had been taken from before my eyes, and that I, for
the first time, saw clearly. The idea of renewing my labours
did not for one instant occur to me; the threat I had heard
weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a
voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in my
own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first
made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious
selfishness; and I banished from my mind every thought that
could lead to a different conclusion.
Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and
I then, putting my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out
about four miles from the shore. The scene was perfectly
solitary: a few boats were returning towards land, but I sailed
away from them. I felt as if I was about the commission of a
dreadful crime, and avoided with shuddering anxiety any
encounter with my fellow-creatures. At one time the moon,
which had before been clear, was suddenly overspread by a
thick cloud, and I took advantage of the moment of
darkness, and cast my basket into the sea: I listened to the
gurgling sound as it sunk, and then sailed away from the
spot. The sky became clouded; but the air was pure,
although chilled by the northeast breeze that was then
rising. But it refreshed me, and filled me with such agreeable
sensations, that I resolved to prolong my stay on the water;
and, fixing the rudder in a direct position, stretched myself
at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, everything
was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat, as its
keel cut through the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a
short time I slept soundly.
 I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but
when I awoke I found that the sun had already mounted
considerably. The wind was high, and the waves continually
threatened the safety of my little skiff. I found that the wind
was northeast, and must have driven me far from the coast
from which I had embarked. I endeavoured to change my
course, but quickly found that, if I again made the attempt,
the boat would be instantly filled with water. Thus situated,
my only resource was to drive before the wind. I confess that
I felt a few sensations of terror. I had no compass with me,
and was so slenderly acquainted with the geography of this
part of the world, that the sun was of little benefit to me. I
might be driven into the wide Atlantic, and feel all the
tortures of starvation, or be swallowed up in the
immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around me. I
had already been out many hours, and felt the torment of a
burning thirst, a prelude to my other sufferings. I looked on
the heavens, which were covered by clouds that flew before
the wind, only to be replaced by others: I looked upon the
sea, it was to be my grave. “Fiend,” I exclaimed, “your task is
already fulfilled!” I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and of
Clerval; all left behind, on whom the monster might satisfy
his sanguinary and merciless passions. This idea plunged me
into a reverie, so despairing and frightful, that even now,
when the scene is on the point of closing before me forever, I
shudder to reflect on it.
Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun
declined towards the horizon, the wind died away into a
gentle breeze, and the sea became free from breakers. But
these gave place to a heavy swell: I felt sick, and hardly able
to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high land
towards the south.
Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue, and the dreadful
suspense I endured for several hours, this sudden certainty
of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to my heart, and tears
gushed from my eyes.
 How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that
clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery! I
constructed another sail with a part of my dress, and eagerly
steered my course towards the land. It had a wild and rocky
appearance; but, as I approached nearer, I easily perceived
the traces of cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore, and
found myself suddenly transported back to the
neighbourhood of civilised man. I carefully traced the
windings of the land, and hailed a steeple which I at length
saw issuing from behind a small promontory. As I was in a
state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards
the town, as a place where I could most easily procure
nourishment. Fortunately I had money with me. As I turned
the promontory, I perceived a small neat town and a good
harbour, which I entered, my heart bounding with joy at my
unexpected escape.
As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the
sails, several people crowded towards the spot. They seemed
much surprised at my appearance; but, instead of offering
me any assistance, whispered together with gestures that at
any other time might have produced in me a slight
sensation of alarm. As it was, I merely remarked that they
spoke English; and I therefore addressed them in that
language: “My good friends,” said I, “will you be so kind as
to tell me the name of this town, and inform me where I
am?”
“You will know that soon enough,” replied a man with a
hoarse voice. “May be you are come to a place that will not
prove much to your taste; but you will not be consulted as to
your quarters, I promise you.”
I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an
answer from a stranger; and I was also disconcerted on
perceiving the frowning and angry countenances of his
companions. “Why do you answer me so roughly?” I replied;
“surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to receive
strangers so inhospitably.”
 “I do not know,” said the man, “what the custom of the
English may be; but is the custom of the Irish to hate
villains.”
While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the
crowd rapidly increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of
curiosity and anger, which annoyed, and in some degree
alarmed me. I enquired the way to the inn; but no one
replied. I then moved forward, and a murmuring sound arose
from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me; when
an ill-looking man approaching, tapped me on the shoulder,
and said, “Come, Sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin’s, to
give an account of yourself.”
“Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of
myself? Is not this a free country?”
“Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a
magistrate; and you are to give an account of the death of a
gentleman who was found murdered here last night.”
This answer startled me; but I presently recovered myself. I
was innocent; that could easily be proved: accordingly I
followed my conductor in silence, and was led to one of the
best houses in the town. I was ready to sink from fatigue and
hunger; but, being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it
politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility
might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt.
Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few
moments to overwhelm me, and extinguish in horror and
despair all fear of ignominy or death.
I must pause here; for it requires all my fortitude to recall
the memory of the frightful events which I am about to
relate, in proper detail, to my recollection.
 CHAPTER XXI

I was soon introduced into the presence of the magistrate,

an old benevolent man, with calm and mild manners. He
looked upon me, however, with some degree of severity: and
then, turning towards my conductors, he asked who
appeared as witnesses on this occasion.
About half a dozen men came forward; and, one being
selected by the magistrate, he deposed, that he had been
out fishing the night before with his son and brother-in-law,
Daniel Nugent, when, about ten o’clock, they observed a
strong northerly blast rising, and they accordingly put in for
port. It was a very dark night, as the moon had not yet risen;
they did not land at the harbour, but, as they had been
accustomed, at a creek about two miles below. He walked on
first, carrying a part of the fishing tackle, and his
companions followed him at some distance. As he was
proceeding along the sands, he struck his foot against
something, and fell at his length on the ground. His
companions came up to assist him; and, by the light of their
lantern, they found that he had fallen on the body of a man,
who was to all appearance dead. Their first supposition was,
that it was the corpse of some person who had been
drowned, and was thrown on shore by the waves; but, on
examination, they found that the clothes were not wet, and
even that the body was not then cold. They instantly carried
it to the cottage of an old woman near the spot, and
endeavoured, but in vain, to restore it to life. It appeared to
be a handsome young man, about five and twenty years of
age. He had apparently been strangled; for there was no
sign of any violence, except the black mark of fingers on his
neck.
The first part of this deposition did not in the least interest
me; but when the mark of the fingers was mentioned, I
remembered the murder of my brother, and felt myself
extremely agitated; my limbs trembled, and a mist came
over my eyes, which obliged me to lean on a chair for
support. The magistrate observed me with a keen eye, and
of course drew an unfavourable augury from my manner.
The son confirmed his father’s account: but when Daniel
Nugent was called, he swore positively that, just before the
fall of his companion, he saw a boat, with a single man in it,
at a short distance from the shore; and, as far as he could
judge by the light of a few stars, it was the same boat in
which I had just landed.
A woman deposed, that she lived near the beach, and was
standing at the door of her cottage, waiting for the return of
the fishermen, about an hour before she heard of the
discovery of the body, when she saw a boat, with only one
man in it, push off from that part of the shore where the
corpse was afterwards found.
Another woman confirmed the account of the fishermen
having brought the body into her house; it was not cold.
They put it into a bed, and rubbed it; and Daniel went to the
town for an apothecary, but life was quite gone.
Several other men were examined concerning my landing;
and they agreed, that, with the strong north wind that had
arisen during the night, it was very probable that I had
beaten about for many hours, and had been obliged to
return nearly to the same spot from which I had departed.
Besides, they observed that it appeared that I had brought
the body from another place, and it was likely, that as I did
not appear to know the shore, I might have put into the
harbour ignorant of the distance of the town of ——— from
the place where I had deposited the corpse.
 Mr. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should
be taken into the room where the body lay for interment,
that it might be observed what effect the sight of it would
produce upon me. This idea was probably suggested by the
extreme agitation I had exhibited when the mode of the
murder had been described. I was accordingly conducted, by
the magistrate and several other persons, to the inn. I could
not help being struck by the strange coincidences that had
taken place during this eventful night; but, knowing that I
had been conversing with several persons in the island I had
inhabited about the time that the body had been found, I
was perfectly tranquil as to the consequences of the affair.
I entered the room where the corpse lay, and was led up to
the coffin. How can I describe my sensations on beholding
it? I feel yet parched with horror, nor can I reflect on that
terrible moment without shuddering and agony. The
examination, the presence of the magistrate and witnesses,
passed like a dream from my memory, when I saw the
lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me. I gasped
for breath; and, throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed,
“Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my
dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other
victims await their destiny: but you, Clerval, my friend, my
benefactor—”
The human frame could no longer support the agonies
that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong
convulsions.
A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the
point of death: my ravings, as I afterwards heard, were
frightful; I called myself the murderer of William, of Justine,
and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my attendants to
assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was
tormented; and at others, I felt the fingers of the monster
already grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony
and terror. Fortunately, as I spoke my native language,
Mr. Kirwin alone understood me; but my gestures and bitter
cries were sufficient to affright the other witnesses.
Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was
before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death
snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of
their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers
have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the
next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what
materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many
shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually
renewed the torture?
But I was doomed to live; and, in two months, found
myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison, stretched on a
wretched bed, surrounded by gaolers, turnkeys, bolts, and
all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon. It was morning, I
remember, when I thus awoke to understanding: I had
forgotten the particulars of what had happened, and only
felt as if some great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed
me; but when I looked around, and saw the barred windows,
and the squalidness of the room in which I was, all flashed
across my memory, and I groaned bitterly.
This sound disturbed an old woman who was sleeping in a
chair beside me. She was a hired nurse, the wife of one of
the turnkeys, and her countenance expressed all those bad
qualities which often characterise that class. The lines of her
face were hard and rude, like that of persons accustomed to
see without sympathising in sights of misery. Her tone
expressed her entire indifference; she addressed me in
English, and the voice struck me as one that I had heard
during my sufferings:—
“Are you better now, sir?” said she.
I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, “I
believe I am; but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I
am sorry that I am still alive to feel this misery and horror.”
“For that matter,” replied the old woman, “if you mean
about the gentleman you murdered, I believe that it were
better for you if you were dead, for I fancy it will go hard
with you! However, that’s none of my business; I am sent to
nurse you, and get you well; I do my duty with a safe
conscience; it were well if everybody did the same.”
I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so
unfeeling a speech to a person just saved, on the very edge
of death; but I felt languid, and unable to reflect on all that
had passed. The whole series of my life appeared to me as a
dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it
never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.
As the images that floated before me became more
distinct, I grew feverish; a darkness pressed around me: no
one was near me who soothed me with the gentle voice of
love; no dear hand supported me. The physician came and
prescribed medicines, and the old woman prepared them for
me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the
expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of
the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a
murderer, but the hangman who would gain his fee?
These were my first reflections; but I soon learned that
Mr. Kirwin had shown me extreme kindness. He had caused
the best room in the prison to be prepared for me (wretched
indeed was the best); and it was he who had provided a
physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me;
for, although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of
every human creature, he did not wish to be present at the
agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came,
therefore, sometimes, to see that I was not neglected; but
his visits were short, and with long intervals.
One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in
a chair, my eyes half open, and my cheeks livid like those in
death. I was overcome by gloom and misery, and often
reflected I had better seek death than desire to remain in a
world which to me was replete with wretchedness. At one
time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty,
and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor
Justine had been. Such were my thoughts, when the door of
my apartment was opened, and Mr. Kirwin entered. His
countenance expressed sympathy and compassion; he drew
a chair close to mine, and addressed me in French—
“I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do
anything to make you more comfortable?”
“I thank you; but all that you mention is nothing to me: on
the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of
receiving.”
“I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little
relief to one borne down as you are by so strange a
misfortune. But you will, I hope, soon quit this melancholy
abode; for, doubtless, evidence can easily be brought to free
you from the criminal charge.”
“That is my least concern: I am, by a course of strange
events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted
and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil
to me?”
“Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonising
than the strange chances that have lately occurred. You
were thrown, by some surprising accident, on this shore,
renowned for its hospitality; seized immediately, and
charged with murder. The first sight that was presented to
your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so
unaccountable a manner, and placed, as it were, by some
fiend across your path.”
As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I
endured on this retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt
considerable surprise at the knowledge he seemed to
possess concerning me. I suppose some astonishment was
exhibited in my countenance; for Mr. Kirwin hastened to
say—
“Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that
were on your person were brought me, and I examined them
that I might discover some trace by which I could send to
your relations an account of your misfortune and illness. I
found several letters, and, among others, one which I
discovered from its commencement to be from your father. I
instantly wrote to Geneva: nearly two months have elapsed
since the departure of my letter.—But you are ill; even now
you tremble: you are unfit for agitation of any kind.”
“This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most
horrible event: tell me what new scene of death has been
acted, and whose murder I am now to lament?”
“Your family is perfectly well,” said Mr. Kirwin, with
gentleness; “and someone, a friend, is come to visit you.”
I know not by what chain of thought, the idea presented
itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer
had come to mock at my misery, and taunt me with the
death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with
his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried
out in agony—
“Oh! take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do
not let him enter!”
Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance. He
could not help regarding my exclamation as a presumption
of my guilt, and said, in rather a severe tone—
“I should have thought, young man, that the presence of
your father would have been welcome, instead of inspiring
such violent repugnance.”
“My father!” cried I, while every feature and every muscle
was relaxed from anguish to pleasure: “is my father indeed
come? How kind, how very kind! But where is he, why does
he not hasten to me?”
My change of manner surprised and pleased the
magistrate; perhaps he thought that my former exclamation
was a momentary return of delirium, and now he instantly
resumed his former benevolence. He rose, and quitted the
room with my nurse, and in a moment my father entered it.
Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater
pleasure than the arrival of my father. I stretched out my
hand to him, and cried—
 “Are you then safe—and Elizabeth—and Ernest?”
My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare, and
endeavoured, by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to
my heart, to raise my desponding spirits; but he soon felt
that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness. “What a
place is this that you inhabit, my son!” said he, looking
mournfully at the barred windows, and wretched appearance
of the room. “You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality
seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval—”
The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an
agitation too great to be endured in my weak state; I shed
tears.
“Alas! yes, my father,” replied I; “some destiny of the most
horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or
surely I should have died on the coffin of Henry.”
We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for
the precarious state of my health rendered every precaution
necessary that could ensure tranquillity. Mr. Kirwin came in,
and insisted that my strength should not be exhausted by
too much exertion. But the appearance of my father was to
me like that of my good angel, and I gradually recovered my
health.
As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy
and black melancholy, that nothing could dissipate. The
image of Clerval was forever before me, ghastly and
murdered. More than once the agitation into which these
reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous
relapse. Alas! why did they preserve so miserable and
detested a life? It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny,
which is now drawing to a close. Soon, oh! very soon, will
death extinguish these throbbings, and relieve me from the
mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust; and, in
executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest. Then
the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was
ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours
motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty
revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.
The season of the assizes approached. I had already been
three months in prison; and although I was still weak, and in
continual danger of a relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly
a hundred miles to the county-town, where the court was
held. Mr. Kirwin charged himself with every care of collecting
witnesses, and arranging my defence. I was spared the
disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal, as the case was
not brought before the court that decides on life and death.
The grand jury rejected the bill, on its being proved that I
was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body of my friend
was found; and a fortnight after my removal I was liberated
from prison.
My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the
vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to
breathe the fresh atmosphere, and permitted to return to my
native country. I did not participate in these feelings; for to
me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful.
The cup of life was poisoned forever; and although the sun
shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw
around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness,
penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that
glared upon me. Sometimes they were the expressive eyes
of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered
by the lids, and the long black lashes that fringed them;
sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster,
as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.
My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection.
He talked of Geneva, which I should soon visit—of Elizabeth
and Ernest; but these words only drew deep groans from me.
Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness; and thought,
with melancholy delight, of my beloved cousin; or longed,
with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the
blue lake and rapid Rhône, that had been so dear to me in
early childhood: but my general state of feeling was a
torpor, in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the
divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom
interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair. At
these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the
existence I loathed; and it required unceasing attendance
and vigilance to restrain me from committing some dreadful
act of violence.
Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which
finally triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary
that I should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch
over the lives of those I so fondly loved; and to lie in wait for
the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his
concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his
presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the
existence of the monstrous Image which I had endued with
the mockery of a soul still more monstrous. My father still
desired to delay our departure, fearful that I could not
sustain the fatigues of a journey: for I was a shattered
wreck—the shadow of a human being. My strength was
gone. I was a mere skeleton; and fever night and day preyed
upon my wasted frame.
Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude
and impatience, my father thought it best to yield. We took
our passage on board a vessel bound for Havre-de-Grace,
and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores. It was
midnight. I lay on the deck, looking at the stars, and
listening to the dashing of the waves. I hailed the darkness
that shut Ireland from my sight; and my pulse beat with a
feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva.
The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream; yet
the vessel in which I was, the wind that blew me from the
detested shore of Ireland, and the sea which surrounded me,
told me too forcibly that I was deceived by no vision, and
that Clerval, my friend and dearest companion, had fallen a
victim to me and the monster of my creation. I repassed, in
my memory, my whole life; my quiet happiness while
residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother,
and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering,
the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of
my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night in which
he first lived. I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a
thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.
Ever since my recovery from the fever, I had been in the
custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum;
for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to
gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life.
Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes, I
now swallowed double my usual quantity, and soon slept
profoundly. But sleep did not afford me respite from thought
and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that
scared me. Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of
nightmare; I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck, and could not
free myself from it; groans and cries rung in my ears. My
father, who was watching over me, perceiving my
restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves were around: the
cloudy sky above; the fiend was not here: a sense of
security, a feeling that a truce was established between the
present hour and the irresistible, disastrous future, imparted
to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind
is by its structure peculiarly susceptible.
 CHAPTER XXII

The voyage came to an end. We landed, and proceeded to

Paris. I soon found that I had overtaxed my strength, and
that I must repose before I could continue my journey. My
father’s care and attentions were indefatigable; but he did
not know the origin of my sufferings, and sought erroneous
methods to remedy the incurable ill. He wished me to seek
amusement in society. I abhorred the face of man. Oh, not
abhorred! they were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I
felt attracted even to the most repulsive among them, as to
creatures of an angelic nature and celestial mechanism. But
I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse. I had
unchained an enemy among them, whose joy it was to shed
their blood, and to revel in their groans. How they would,
each and all, abhor me, and hunt me from the world, did
they know my unhallowed acts, and the crimes which had
their source in me!
My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society,
and strove by various arguments to banish my despair.
Sometimes he thought that I felt deeply the degradation of
being obliged to answer a charge of murder, and he
endeavoured to prove to me the futility of pride.
“Alas! my father,” said I, “how little do you know me.
Human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be
degraded if such a wretch as I felt pride. Justine, poor
unhappy Justine, was as innocent as I, and she suffered the
same charge; she died for it; and I am the cause of this—I
murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry—they all died by
my hands.”
My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me
make the same assertion; when I thus accused myself, he
sometimes seemed to desire an explanation, and at others
he appeared to consider it as the offspring of delirium, and
that, during my illness, some idea of this kind had presented
itself to my imagination, the remembrance of which I
preserved in my convalescence. I avoided explanation, and
maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had
created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad;
and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue.
But, besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret
which would fill my hearer with consternation, and make
fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast. I
checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy, and
was silent when I would have given the world to have
confided the fatal secret. Yet still words like those I have
recorded, would burst uncontrollably from me. I could offer
no explanation of them; but their truth in part relieved the
burden of my mysterious woe.
Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of
unbounded wonder, “My dearest Victor, what infatuation is
this? My dear son, I entreat you never to make such an
assertion again.”
“I am not mad,” I cried energetically; “the sun and the
heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness
of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent
victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times
would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have
saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could
not sacrifice the whole human race.”
The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that
my ideas were deranged, and he instantly changed the
subject of our conversation, and endeavoured to alter the
course of my thoughts. He wished as much as possible to
obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in
Ireland, and never alluded to them, or suffered me to speak
of my misfortunes.
As time passed away I became more calm: misery had her
dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same
incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was
the consciousness of them. By the utmost self-violence, I
curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which
sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world; and
my manners were calmer and more composed than they had
ever been since my journey to the sea of ice.
A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I
received the following letter from Elizabeth:—

“My dear Friend,

“It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from
my uncle dated at Paris; you are no longer at a formidable
distance, and I may hope to see you in less than a fortnight.
My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered! I expect
to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted
Geneva. This winter has been passed most miserably,
tortured as I have been by anxious suspense; yet I hope to
see peace in your countenance, and to find that your heart
is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity.
“Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you
so miserable a year ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I
would not disturb you at this period, when so many
misfortunes weigh upon you; but a conversation that I had
with my uncle previous to his departure renders some
explanation necessary before we meet.
“Explanation! you may possibly say; what can Elizabeth
have to explain? If you really say this, my questions are
answered, and all my doubts satisfied. But you are distant
from me, and it is possible that you may dread, and yet be
pleased with this explanation; and, in a probability of this
being the case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what,
during your absence, I have often wished to express to you,
but have never had the courage to begin.
“You well know, Victor, that our union had been the
favourite plan of your parents ever since our infancy. We
were told this when young, and taught to look forward to it
as an event that would certainly take place. We were
affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe,
dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But
as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection
towards each other, without desiring a more intimate union,
may not such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor.
Answer me, I conjure you, by our mutual happiness, with
simple truth—Do you not love another?
“You have travelled; you have spent several years of your
life at Ingolstadt; and I confess to you, my friend, that when I
saw you last autumn so unhappy, flying to solitude, from the
society of every creature, I could not help supposing that
you might regret our connection, and believe yourself bound
in honour to fulfil the wishes of your parents, although they
opposed themselves to your inclinations. But this is false
reasoning. I confess to you, my friend, that I love you, and
that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my
constant friend and companion. But it is your happiness I
desire as well as my own, when I declare to you, that our
marriage would render me eternally miserable, unless it
were the dictate of your own free choice. Even now I weep to
think, that, borne down as you are by the cruellest
misfortunes, you may stifle, by the word honour, all hope of
that love and happiness which would alone restore you to
yourself. I, who have so disinterested an affection for you,
may increase your miseries tenfold, by being an obstacle to
your wishes. Ah! Victor, be assured that your cousin and
playmate has too sincere a love for you not to be made
miserable by this supposition. Be happy, my friend; and if
you obey me in this one request, remain satisfied that
nothing on earth will have the power to interrupt my
tranquillity.
“Do not let this letter disturb you; do not answer tomorrow,
or the next day, or even until you come, if it will give you
pain. My uncle will send me news of your health; and if I see
but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this
or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other
happiness.

“ELIZABETH LAVENZA.
“Geneva, May 18th, 17—.”

This letter revived in my memory what I had before

forgotten, the threat of the fiend—“I will be with you on your
wedding night!” Such was my sentence, and on that night
would the dæmon employ every art to destroy me, and tear
me from the glimpse of happiness which promised partly to
console my sufferings. On that night he had determined to
consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it so; a deadly
struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he
were victorious I should be at peace, and his power over me
be at an end. If he were vanquished, I should be a free man.
Alas! what freedom? such as the peasant enjoys when his
family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage
burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless,
penniless, and alone, but free. Such would be my liberty,
except that in my Elizabeth I possessed a treasure; alas!
balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt, which would
pursue me until death.
Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter,
and some softened feelings stole into my heart, and dared to
whisper paradisiacal dreams of love and joy; but the apple
was already eaten, and the angel’s arm bared to drive me
from all hope. Yet I would die to make her happy. If the
monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; yet,
again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my
fate. My destruction might indeed arrive a few months
sooner; but if my torturer should suspect that I postponed it,
influenced by his menaces, he would surely find other, and
perhaps more dreadful means of revenge. He had vowed to
be with me on my wedding-night, yet he did not consider
that threat as binding him to peace in the mean time; for, as
if to show me that he was not yet satiated with blood, he
had murdered Clerval immediately after the enunciation of
his threats. I resolved, therefore, that if my immediate union
with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my father’s
happiness, my adversary’s designs against my life should
not retard it a single hour.
In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth. My letter was
calm and affectionate. “I fear, my beloved girl,” I said, “little
happiness remains for us on earth; yet all that I may one day
enjoy is centred in you. Chase away your idle fears; to you
alone do I consecrate my life, and my endeavours for
contentment. I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one;
when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and
then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only
wonder that I survive what I have endured. I will confide this
tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage
shall take place; for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect
confidence between us. But until then, I conjure you, do not
mention or allude to it. This I most earnestly entreat, and I
know you will comply.”
In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth’s letter, we
returned to Geneva. The sweet girl welcomed me with warm
affection; yet tears were in her eyes, as she beheld my
emaciated frame and feverish cheeks. I saw a change in her
also. She was thinner, and had lost much of that heavenly
vivacity that had before charmed me; but her gentleness,
and soft looks of compassion, made her a more fit
companion for one blasted and miserable as I was.
The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not endure.
Memory brought madness with it; and when I thought of
what had passed, a real insanity possessed me; sometimes I
was furious, and burnt with rage; sometimes low and
despondent. I neither spoke, nor looked at anyone, but sat
motionless, bewildered by the multitude of miseries that
overcame me.
Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits;
her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by
passion, and inspire me with human feelings when sunk in
torpor. She wept with me, and for me. When reason
returned, she would remonstrate, and endeavour to inspire
me with resignation. Ah! it is well for the unfortunate to be
resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of
remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes
found in indulging the excess of grief.
Soon after my arrival, my father spoke of my immediate
marriage with Elizabeth. I remained silent.
“Have you, then, some other attachment?”
“None on earth. I love Elizabeth, and look forward to our
union with delight. Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I
will consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of
my cousin.”
“My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes
have befallen us; but let us only cling closer to what
remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost,
to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound
close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And
when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear
objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we
have been so cruelly deprived.”
Such were the lessons of my father. But to me the
remembrance of the threat returned: nor can you wonder,
that, omnipotent as the fiend had yet been in his deeds of
blood, I should almost regard him as invincible; and that
when he had pronounced the words, “I shall be with you on
your wedding-night,” I should regard the threatened fate as
unavoidable. But death was no evil to me, if the loss of
Elizabeth were balanced with it; and I therefore, with a
contented and even cheerful countenance, agreed with my
father, that if my cousin would consent, the ceremony
should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined,
the seal to my fate.
Great God! if for one instant I had thought what might be
the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather
have banished myself forever from my native country, and
wandered a friendless outcast over the earth, than have
consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of
magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real
intentions; and when I thought that I had prepared only my
own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim.
As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether
from cowardice or a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink
within me. But I concealed my feelings by an appearance of
hilarity, that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of
my father, but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer
eye of Elizabeth. She looked forward to our union with placid
contentment, not unmingled with a little fear, which past
misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain
and tangible happiness, might soon dissipate into an airy
dream, and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret.
Preparations were made for the event; congratulatory
visits were received; and all wore a smiling appearance. I
shut up, as well as I could, in my own heart the anxiety that
preyed there, and entered with seeming earnestness into
the plans of my father, although they might only serve as
the decorations of my tragedy. Through my father’s
exertions, a part of the inheritance of Elizabeth had been
restored to her by the Austrian government. A small
possession on the shores of Como belonged to her. It was
agreed that, immediately after our union, we should proceed
to Villa Lavenza, and spend our first days of happiness
beside the beautiful lake near which it stood.
 In the mean time I took every precaution to defend my
person, in case the fiend should openly attack me. I carried
pistols and a dagger constantly about me, and was ever on
the watch to prevent artifice; and by these means gained a
greater degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the period
approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to
be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the
happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore a greater
appearance of certainty, as the day fixed for its
solemnisation drew nearer, and I heard it continually spoken
of as an occurrence which no accident could possibly
prevent.
Elizabeth seemed happy; my tranquil demeanour
contributed greatly to calm her mind. But on the day that
was to fulfil my wishes and my destiny, she was melancholy,
and a presentiment of evil pervaded her; and perhaps also
she thought of the dreadful secret which I had promised to
reveal to her on the following day. My father was in the mean
time overjoyed, and, in the bustle of preparation, only
recognised in the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a
bride.
After the ceremony was performed, a large party
assembled at my father’s; but it was agreed that Elizabeth
and I should commence our journey by water, sleeping that
night at Evian, and continuing our voyage on the following
day. The day was fair, the wind favourable, all smiled on our
nuptial embarkation.
Those were the last moments of my life during which I
enjoyed the feeling of happiness. We passed rapidly along:
the sun was hot, but we were sheltered from its rays by a
kind of canopy, while we enjoyed the beauty of the scene,
sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw Mont
Salêve, the pleasant banks of Montalègre, and at a distance,
surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blanc, and the
assemblage of snowy mountains that in vain endeavour to
emulate her; sometimes coasting the opposite banks, we
saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark side to the ambition
that would quit its native country, and an almost
insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to
enslave it.
I took the hand of Elizabeth: “You are sorrowful, my love.
Ah! if you knew what I have suffered, and what I may yet
endure, you would endeavour to let me taste the quiet and
freedom from despair, that this one day at least permits me
to enjoy.”
“Be happy, my dear Victor,” replied Elizabeth; “there is, I
hope, nothing to distress you; and be assured that if a lively
joy is not painted in my face, my heart is contented.
Something whispers to me not to depend too much on the
prospect that is opened before us; but I will not listen to
such a sinister voice. Observe how fast we move along, and
how the clouds, which sometimes obscure and sometimes
rise above the dome of Mont Blanc, render this scene of
beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable
fish that are swimming in the clear waters, where we can
distinguish every pebble that lies at the bottom. What a
divine day! how happy and serene all nature appears!”
Thus Elizabeth endeavoured to divert her thoughts and
mine from all reflection upon melancholy subjects. But her
temper was fluctuating; joy for a few instants shone in her
eyes, but it continually gave place to distraction and reverie.
The sun sunk lower in the heavens; we passed the river
Drance, and observed its path through the chasms of the
higher, and the glens of the lower hills. The Alps here come
closer to the lake, and we approached the amphitheatre of
mountains which forms its eastern boundary. The spire of
Evian shone under the woods that surrounded it, and the
range of mountain above mountain by which it was
overhung.
The wind, which had hitherto carried us along with
amazing rapidity, sunk at sunset to a light breeze; the soft
air just ruffled the water, and caused a pleasant motion
among the trees as we approached the shore, from which it
wafted the most delightful scent of flowers and hay. The sun
sunk beneath the horizon as we landed; and as I touched
the shore, I felt those cares and fears revive, which soon
were to clasp me, and cling to me forever.
 CHAPTER XXIII

It was eight o’clock when we landed; we walked for a short

time on the shore, enjoying the transitory light, and then
retired to the inn, and contemplated the lovely scene of
waters, woods, and mountains, obscured in darkness, yet
still displaying their black outlines.
The wind, which had fallen in the south, now rose with
great violence in the west. The moon had reached her
summit in the heavens, and was beginning to descend; the
clouds swept across it swifter than the flight of the vulture,
and dimmed her rays, while the lake reflected the scene of
the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the restless waves
that were beginning to rise. Suddenly a heavy storm of rain
descended.
I had been calm during the day; but so soon as night
obscured the shapes of objects, a thousand fears arose in my
mind. I was anxious and watchful, while my right hand
grasped a pistol which was hidden in my bosom; every
sound terrified me; but I resolved that I would sell my life
dearly, and not shrink from the conflict until my own life, or
that of my adversary, was extinguished.
Elizabeth observed my agitation for some time in timid
and fearful silence; but there was something in my glance
which communicated terror to her, and trembling she asked,
“What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it you
fear?”
“Oh! peace, peace, my love,” replied I; “this night, and all
will be safe: but this night is dreadful, very dreadful.”
 I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I
reflected how fearful the combat which I momentarily
expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly entreated her
to retire, resolving not to join her until I had obtained some
knowledge as to the situation of my enemy.
She left me, and I continued some time walking up and
down the passages of the house, and inspecting every
corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary. But I
discovered no trace of him, and was beginning to conjecture
that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the
execution of his menaces; when suddenly I heard a shrill and
dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth
had retired. As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my
mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and
fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my
veins, and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This state
lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I
rushed into the room.
Great God! why did I not then expire! Why am I here to
relate the destruction of the best hope, and the purest
creature of earth? She was there, lifeless and inanimate,
thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale
and distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere I
turn I see the same figure—her bloodless arms and relaxed
form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold
this, and live? Alas! life is obstinate, and clings closest
where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose
recollection; I fell senseless on the ground.
When I recovered, I found myself surrounded by the
people of the inn; their countenances expressed a
breathless terror: but the horror of others appeared only as a
mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me. I
escaped from them to the room where lay the body of
Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so
worthy. She had been moved from the posture in which I had
first beheld her; and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm,
and a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck, I might
have supposed her asleep. I rushed towards her, and
embraced her with ardour; but the deadly languor and
coldness of the limbs told me, that what I now held in my
arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and
cherished. The murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on
her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips.
While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I
happened to look up. The windows of the room had before
been darkened, and I felt a kind of panic on seeing the pale
yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber. The
shutters had been thrown back; and, with a sensation of
horror not to be described, I saw at the open window a figure
the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of
the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger
he pointed towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards
the window, and drawing a pistol from my bosom, fired; but
he eluded me, leaped from his station, and, running with the
swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake.
The report of the pistol brought a crowd into the room. I
pointed to the spot where he had disappeared, and we
followed the track with boats; nets were cast, but in vain.
After passing several hours, we returned hopeless, most of
my companions believing it to have been a form conjured up
by my fancy. After having landed, they proceeded to search
the country, parties going in different directions among the
woods and vines.
I attempted to accompany them, and proceeded a short
distance from the house; but my head whirled round, my
steps were like those of a drunken man, I fell at last in a
state of utter exhaustion; a film covered my eyes, and my
skin was parched with the heat of fever. In this state I was
carried back, and placed on a bed, hardly conscious of what
had happened; my eyes wandered round the room, as if to
seek something that I had lost.
 After an interval, I arose, and, as if by instinct, crawled into
the room where the corpse of my beloved lay. There were
women weeping around—I hung over it, and joined my sad
tears to theirs—all this time no distinct idea presented itself
to my mind; but my thoughts rambled to various subjects,
reflecting confusedly on my misfortunes, and their cause. I
was bewildered in a cloud of wonder and horror. The death of
William, the execution of Justine, the murder of Clerval, and
lastly of my wife; even at that moment I knew not that my
only remaining friends were safe from the malignity of the
fiend; my father even now might be writhing under his
grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his feet. This idea made
me shudder, and recalled me to action. I started up, and
resolved to return to Geneva with all possible speed.
There were no horses to be procured, and I must return by
the lake; but the wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in
torrents. However, it was hardly morning, and I might
reasonably hope to arrive by night. I hired men to row, and
took an oar myself; for I had always experienced relief from
mental torment in bodily exercise. But the overflowing
misery I now felt, and the excess of agitation that I endured,
rendered me incapable of any exertion. I threw down the
oar; and leaning my head upon my hands, gave way to
every gloomy idea that arose. If I looked up, I saw the scenes
which were familiar to me in my happier time, and which I
had contemplated but the day before in the company of her
who was now but a shadow and a recollection. Tears
streamed from my eyes. The rain had ceased for a moment,
and I saw the fish play in the waters as they had done a few
hours before; they had then been observed by Elizabeth.
Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and
sudden change. The sun might shine, or the clouds might
lower: but nothing could appear to me as it had done the
day before. A fiend had snatched from me every hope of
future happiness: no creature had ever been so miserable as
I was; so frightful an event is single in the history of man.
 But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed
this last overwhelming event? Mine has been a tale of
horrors; I have reached their acme, and what I must now
relate can but be tedious to you. Know that, one by one, my
friends were snatched away; I was left desolate. My own
strength is exhausted; and I must tell, in a few words, what
remains of my hideous narration.
I arrived at Geneva. My father and Ernest yet lived; but
the former sunk under the tidings that I bore. I see him now,
excellent and venerable old man! his eyes wandered in
vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their delight—his
Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with
all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of
life, having few affections, clings more earnestly to those
that remain. Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery
on his grey hairs, and doomed him to waste in
wretchedness! He could not live under the horrors that were
accumulated around him; the springs of existence suddenly
gave way: he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few
days he died in my arms.
What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and
chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed
upon me. Sometimes, indeed, I dreamt that I wandered in
flowery meadows and pleasant vales with the friends of my
youth; but I awoke, and found myself in a dungeon.
Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear
conception of my miseries and situation, and was then
released from my prison. For they had called me mad; and
during many months, as I understood, a solitary cell had
been my habitation.
Liberty, however, had been an useless gift to me, had I
not, as I awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to
revenge. As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon
me, I began to reflect on their cause—the monster whom I
had created, the miserable dæmon whom I had sent abroad
into the world for my destruction. I was possessed by a
maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and
ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to
wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head.
Nor did my hate long confine itself to useless wishes; I
began to reflect on the best means of securing him; and for
this purpose, about a month after my release, I repaired to a
criminal judge in the town, and told him that I had an
accusation to make; that I knew the destroyer of my family;
and that I required him to exert his whole authority for the
apprehension of the murderer.
The magistrate listened to me with attention and
kindness:—“Be assured, sir,” said he, “no pains or exertions
on my part shall be spared to discover the villain.”
“I thank you,” replied I; “listen, therefore, to the deposition
that I have to make. It is indeed a tale so strange, that I
should fear you would not credit it, were there not
something in truth which, however wonderful, forces
conviction. The story is too connected to be mistaken for a
dream, and I have no motive for falsehood.” My manner, as I
thus addressed him, was impressive, but calm; I had formed
in my own heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to
death; and this purpose quieted my agony, and for an
interval reconciled me to life. I now related my history,
briefly, but with firmness and precision, marking the dates
with accuracy, and never deviating into invective or
exclamation.
The magistrate appeared at first perfectly incredulous, but
as I continued he became more attentive and interested; I
saw him sometimes shudder with horror, at others a lively
surprise, unmingled with disbelief, was painted on his
countenance.
When I had concluded my narration, I said, “This is the
being whom I accuse, and for whose seizure and punishment
I call upon you to exert your whole power. It is your duty as a
magistrate, and I believe and hope that your feelings as a
man will not revolt from the execution of those functions on
this occasion.”
This address caused a considerable change in the
physiognomy of my own auditor. He had heard my story with
that half kind of belief that is given to a tale of spirits and
supernatural events; but when he was called upon to act
officially in consequence, the whole tide of his incredulity
returned. He, however, answered mildly, “I would willingly
afford you every aid in your pursuit; but the creature of
whom you speak appears to have powers which would put
all my exertions to defiance. Who can follow an animal
which can traverse the sea of ice, and inhabit caves and
dens where no man would venture to intrude? Besides, some
months have elapsed since the commission of his crimes,
and no one can conjecture to what place he has wandered,
or what region he may now inhabit.”
“I do not doubt that he hovers near the spot which I
inhabit; and if he has indeed taken refuge in the Alps, he
may be hunted like the chamois, and destroyed as a beast of
prey. But I perceive your thoughts: you do not credit my
narrative, and do not intend to pursue my enemy with the
punishment which is his desert.”
As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; the magistrate was
intimidated:—“You are mistaken,” said he, “I will exert
myself; and if it is in my power to seize the monster, be
assured that he shall suffer punishment proportionate to his
crimes. But I fear, from what you have yourself described to
be his properties, that this will prove impracticable; and
thus, while every proper measure is pursued, you should
make up your mind to disappointment.”
“That cannot be; but all that I can say will be of little avail.
My revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be
a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion of
my soul. My rage is unspeakable, when I reflect that the
murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still
exists. You refuse my just demand: I have but one resource;
and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his
destruction.”
I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this; there was
a frenzy in my manner, and something, I doubt not, of that
haughty fierceness which the martyrs of old are said to have
possessed. But to a Genevan magistrate, whose mind was
occupied by far other ideas than those of devotion and
heroism, this elevation of mind had much the appearance of
madness. He endeavoured to soothe me as a nurse does a
child, and reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium.
“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of
wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.”
I broke from the house angry and disturbed, and retired to
meditate on some other mode of action.
 CHAPTER XXIV

My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought

was swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury;
revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure; it
moulded my feelings, and allowed me to be calculating and
calm, at periods when otherwise delirium or death would
have been my portion.
My first resolution was to quit Geneva forever; my country,
which, when I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now,
in my adversity, became hateful. I provided myself with a
sum of money, together with a few jewels which had
belonged to my mother, and departed.
And now my wanderings began, which are to cease but
with life. I have traversed a vast portion of the earth, and
have endured all the hardships which travellers, in deserts
and barbarous countries, are wont to meet. How I have lived
I hardly know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs
upon the sandy plain, and prayed for death. But revenge
kept me alive; I dared not die, and leave my adversary in
being.
When I quitted Geneva, my first labour was to gain some
clue by which I might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy.
But my plan was unsettled; and I wandered many hours
round the confines of the town, uncertain what path I should
pursue. As night approached, I found myself at the entrance
of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father
reposed. I entered it, and approached the tomb which
marked their graves. Everything was silent, except the
leaves of the trees, which were gently agitated by the wind;
the night was nearly dark; and the scene would have been
solemn and affecting even to an uninterested observer. The
spirits of the departed seemed to flit around, and to cast a
shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the head of the
mourner.
The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly
gave way to rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived;
their murderer also lived, and to destroy him I must drag out
my weary existence. I knelt on the grass, and kissed the
earth, and with quivering lips exclaimed, “By the sacred
earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me,
by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by
thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to
pursue the dæmon, who caused this misery, until he or I
shall perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve
my life: to execute this dear revenge, will I again behold the
sun, and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise
should vanish from my eyes forever. And I call on you, spirits
of the dead; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance,
to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and
hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair
that now torments me.”
I had begun my adjuration with solemnity, and an awe
which almost assured me that the shades of my murdered
friends heard and approved my devotion; but the furies
possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked my
utterance.
I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and
fiendish laugh. It rung on my ears long and heavily; the
mountains reechoed it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me
with mockery and laughter. Surely in that moment I should
have been possessed by frenzy, and have destroyed my
miserable existence, but that my vow was heard, and that I
was reserved for vengeance. The laughter died away; when
a well-known and abhorred voice, apparently close to my
ear, addressed me in an audible whisper—“I am satisfied:
miserable wretch! you have determined to live, and I am
satisfied.”
I darted towards the spot from which the sound
proceeded; but the devil eluded my grasp. Suddenly the
broad disk of the moon arose, and shone full upon his
ghastly and distorted shape, as he fled with more than
mortal speed.
I pursued him; and for many months this has been my
task. Guided by a slight clue, I followed the windings of the
Rhône, but vainly. The blue Mediterranean appeared; and,
by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night, and hide
himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took my
passage in the same ship; but he escaped, I know not how.
Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still
evaded me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the
peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of
his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all
trace of him, I should despair and die, left some mark to
guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the
print of his huge step on the white plain. To you first
entering on life, to whom care is new, and agony unknown,
how can you understand what I have felt, and still feel?
Cold, want, and fatigue, were the least pains which I was
destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and carried
about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good
followed and directed my steps; and, when I most
murmured, would suddenly extricate me from seemingly
insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature,
overcome by hunger, sunk under the exhaustion, a repast
was prepared for me in the desert, that restored and
inspirited me. The fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the
peasants of the country ate; but I will not doubt that it was
set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me. Often,
when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched
by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few
drops that revived me, and vanish.
I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the
dæmon generally avoided these, as it was here that the
population of the country chiefly collected. In other places
human beings were seldom seen; and I generally subsisted
on the wild animals that crossed my path. I had money with
me, and gained the friendship of the villagers by
distributing it; or I brought with me some food that I had
killed, which, after taking a small part, I always presented to
those who had provided me with fire and utensils for
cooking.
My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it
was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed
sleep! often, when most miserable, I sank to repose, and my
dreams lulled me even to rapture. The spirits that guarded
me had provided these moments, or rather hours, of
happiness, that I might retain strength to fulfil my
pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite, I should have sunk
under my hardships. During the day I was sustained and
inspirited by the hope of night: for in sleep I saw my friends,
my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the
benevolent countenance of my father, heard the silver tones
of my Elizabeth’s voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health
and youth. Often, when wearied by a toilsome march, I
persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should
come, and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my
dearest friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for them!
how did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they
haunted even my waking hours, and persuade myself that
they still lived! At such moments vengeance, that burned
within me, died in my heart, and I pursued my path towards
the destruction of the dæmon, more as a task enjoined by
heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of which I
was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul.
 What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know.
Sometimes, indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of
the trees, or cut in stone, that guided me, and instigated my
fury. “My reign is not yet over,” (these words were legible in
one of these inscriptions;) “you live, and my power is
complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north,
where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I
am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not
too tardily, a dead hare; eat, and be refreshed. Come on, my
enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives; but many hard
and miserable hours must you endure until that period shall
arrive.”
Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I
devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never
will I give up my search, until he or I perish; and then with
what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth, and my departed
friends, who even now prepare for me the reward of my
tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage!
As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows
thickened, and the cold increased in a degree almost too
severe to support. The peasants were shut up in their hovels,
and only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize the
animals whom starvation had forced from their hiding-places
to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish
could be procured; and thus I was cut off from my chief
article of maintenance.
The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of
my labours. One inscription that he left was in these
words:—“Prepare! your toils only begin: wrap yourself in
furs, and provide food; for we shall soon enter upon a
journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting
hatred.”
My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these
scoffing words; I resolved not to fail in my purpose; and,
calling on Heaven to support me, I continued with unabated
fervour to traverse immense deserts, until the ocean
appeared at a distance, and formed the utmost boundary of
the horizon. Oh! how unlike it was to the blue seas of the
south! Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from
land by its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks
wept for joy when they beheld the Mediterranean from the
hills of Asia, and hailed with rapture the boundary of their
toils. I did not weep; but I knelt down, and, with a full heart,
thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in safety to the
place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary’s gibe,
to meet and grapple with him.
Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge
and dogs, and thus traversed the snows with inconceivable
speed. I know not whether the fiend possessed the same
advantages; but I found that, as before I had daily lost
ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him: so much so, that
when I first saw the ocean, he was but one day’s journey in
advance, and I hoped to intercept him before he should
reach the beach. With new courage, therefore, I pressed on,
and in two days arrived at a wretched hamlet on the
seashore. I enquired of the inhabitants concerning the fiend,
and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they
said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and
many pistols; putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary
cottage, through fear of his terrific appearance. He had
carried off their store of winter food, and, placing it in a
sledge, to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove of
trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night,
to the joy of the horror-struck villagers, had pursued his
journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land; and
they conjectured that he must speedily be destroyed by the
breaking of the ice, or frozen by the eternal frosts.
On hearing this information, I suffered a temporary access
of despair. He had escaped me; and I must commence a
destructive and almost endless journey across the
mountainous ices of the ocean—amidst cold that few of the
inhabitants could long endure, and which I, the native of a
genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. Yet at
the idea that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my
rage and vengeance returned, and, like a mighty tide,
overwhelmed every other feeling. After a slight repose,
during which the spirits of the dead hovered round, and
instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey.
I exchanged my land-sledge for one fashioned for the
inequalities of the Frozen Ocean; and purchasing a plentiful
stock of provisions, I departed from land.
I cannot guess how many days have passed since then;
but I have endured misery, which nothing but the eternal
sentiment of a just retribution burning within my heart could
have enabled me to support. Immense and rugged
mountains of ice often barred up my passage, and I often
heard the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my
destruction. But again the frost came, and made the paths of
the sea secure.
By the quantity of provision which I had consumed, I
should guess that I had passed three weeks in this journey;
and the continual protraction of hope, returning back upon
the heart, often wrung bitter drops of despondency and grief
from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost secured her prey,
and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery. Once, after
the poor animals that conveyed me had with incredible toil
gained the summit of a sloping ice-mountain, and one,
sinking under his fatigue, died, I viewed the expanse before
me with anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark
speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to discover
what it could be, and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I
distinguished a sledge, and the distorted proportions of a
well-known form within. Oh! with what a burning gush did
hope revisit my heart! warm tears filled my eyes, which I
hastily wiped away, that they might not intercept the view I
had of the dæmon; but still my sight was dimmed by the
burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that
oppressed me, I wept aloud.
 But this was not the time for delay: I disencumbered the
dogs of their dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion
of food; and, after an hour’s rest, which was absolutely
necessary, and yet which was bitterly irksome to me, I
continued my route. The sledge was still visible; nor did I
again lose sight of it, except at the moments when for a
short time some ice-rock concealed it with its intervening
crags. I indeed perceptibly gained on it; and when, after
nearly two days’ journey, I beheld my enemy at no more
than a mile distant, my heart bounded within me.
But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my foe,
my hopes were suddenly extinguished, and I lost all trace of
him more utterly than I had ever done before. A ground sea
was heard; the thunder of its progress, as the waters rolled
and swelled beneath me, became every moment more
ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind
arose; the sea roared; and, as with the mighty shock of an
earthquake, it split, and cracked with a tremendous and
overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished: in a few
minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my
enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice,
that was continually lessening, and thus preparing for me a
hideous death.
In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of
my dogs died; and I myself was about to sink under the
accumulation of distress, when I saw your vessel riding at
anchor, and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life. I
had no conception that vessels ever came so far north, and
was astounded at the sight. I quickly destroyed part of my
sledge to construct oars; and by these means was enabled,
with infinite fatigue, to move my ice-raft in the direction of
your ship. I had determined, if you were going southward,
still to trust myself to the mercy of the seas rather than
abandon my purpose. I hoped to induce you to grant me a
boat with which I could pursue my enemy. But your direction
was northward. You took me on board when my vigour was
exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my
multiplied hardships into a death which I still dread—for my
task is unfulfilled.
Oh! when will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the
dæmon, allow me the rest I so much desire; or must I die,
and he yet live? If I do, swear to me, Walton, that he shall
not escape; that you will seek him, and satisfy my
vengeance in his death. And do I dare to ask of you to
undertake my pilgrimage, to endure the hardships that I
have undergone? No; I am not so selfish. Yet, when I am
dead, if he should appear; if the ministers of vengeance
should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not live—
swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes,
and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes. He is
eloquent and persuasive; and once his words had even
power over my heart: but trust him not. His soul is as hellish
as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice. Hear him
not; call on the manes of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth,
my father, and of the wretched Victor, and thrust your sword
into his heart. I will hover near, and direct the steel aright.

WALTON, IN CONTINUATION

August 26th, 17—.

You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and
do you not feel your blood congeal with horror, like that
which even now curdles mine? Sometimes, seized with
sudden agony, he could not continue his tale; at others, his
voice broken, yet piercing, uttered with difficulty the words
so replete with anguish. His fine and lovely eyes were now
lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast
sorrow, and quenched in infinite wretchedness. Sometimes
he commanded his countenance and tones, and related the
most horrible incidents with a tranquil voice, suppressing
every mark of agitation; then, like a volcano bursting forth,
his face would suddenly change to an expression of the
wildest rage, as he shrieked out imprecations on his
persecutor.
His tale is connected, and told with an appearance of the
simplest truth; yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and
Safie, which he showed me, and the apparition of the
monster seen from our ship, brought to me a greater
conviction of the truth of his narrative than his
asseverations, however earnest and connected. Such a
monster has then really existence! I cannot doubt it; yet I
am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I
endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his
creature’s formation: but on this point he was impenetrable.
“Are you mad, my friend?” said he; “or whither does your
senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for
yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, peace!
learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.”
Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his
history: he asked to see them, and then himself corrected
and augmented them in many places; but principally in
giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with
his enemy. “Since you have preserved my narration,” said
he, “I would not that a mutilated one should go down to
posterity.”
Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the
strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts,
and every feeling of my soul, have been drunk up by the
interest for my guest, which this tale, and his own elevated
and gentle manners, have created. I wish to soothe him; yet
can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of
every hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no! the only joy that
he can now know will be when he composes his shattered
spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the
offspring of solitude and delirium: he believes, that, when in
dreams he holds converse with his friends, and derives from
that communion consolation for his miseries, or excitements
to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his
fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the
regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his
reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and
interesting as truth.
Our conversations are not always confined to his own
history and misfortunes. On every point of general literature
he displays unbounded knowledge, and a quick and piercing
apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching; nor
can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident, or
endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, without
tears. What a glorious creature must he have been in the
days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in
ruin! He seems to feel his own worth, and the greatness of
his fall.
“When younger,” said he, “I believed myself destined for
some great enterprise. My feelings are profound; but I
possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for
illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my
nature supported me, when others would have been
oppressed; for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless
grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow-
creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no
less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational
animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common
projectors. But this thought, which supported me in the
commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me
lower in the dust. All my speculations and hopes are as
nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to
omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. My
imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and
application were intense; by the union of these qualities I
conceived the idea, and executed the creation of a man.
Even now I cannot recollect, without passion, my reveries
while the work was incomplete. I trod heaven in my
thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the
idea of their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high
hopes and a lofty ambition; but how am I sunk! Oh! my
friend, if you had known me as I once was, you would not
recognise me in this state of degradation. Despondency
rarely visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me
on, until I fell, never, never again to rise.”
Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a
friend; I have sought one who would sympathise with and
love me. Behold, on these desert seas I have found such a
one; but, I fear, I have gained him only to know his value,
and lose him. I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses
the idea.
“I thank you, Walton,” he said, “for your kind intentions
towards so miserable a wretch; but when you speak of new
ties, and fresh affections, think you that any can replace
those who are gone? Can any man be to me as Clerval was;
or any woman another Elizabeth? Even where the affections
are not strongly moved by any superior excellence, the
companions of our childhood always possess a certain power
over our minds, which hardly any later friend can obtain.
They know our infantine dispositions, which, however they
may be afterwards modified, are never eradicated; and they
can judge of our actions with more certain conclusions as to
the integrity of our motives. A sister or a brother can never,
unless indeed such symptoms have been shown early,
suspect the other of fraud or false dealing, when another
friend, however strongly he may be attached, may, in spite
of himself, be contemplated with suspicion. But I enjoyed
friends, dear not only through habit and association, but
from their own merits; and wherever I am, the soothing voice
of my Elizabeth, and the conversation of Clerval, will be ever
whispered in my ear. They are dead; and but one feeling in
such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life. If I
were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught
with extensive utility to my fellow-creatures, then could I
live to fulfil it. But such is not my destiny; I must pursue and
destroy the being to whom I gave existence; then my lot on
earth will be fulfilled, and I may die.”

September 2nd.

My beloved Sister,
I write to you, encompassed by peril, and ignorant
whether I am ever doomed to see again dear England, and
the dearer friends that inhabit it. I am surrounded by
mountains of ice, which admit of no escape, and threaten
every moment to crush my vessel. The brave fellows, whom I
have persuaded to be my companions, look towards me for
aid; but I have none to bestow. There is something terribly
appalling in our situation, yet my courage and hopes do not
desert me. Yet it is terrible to reflect that the lives of all
these men are endangered through me. If we are lost, my
mad schemes are the cause.
And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You
will not hear of my destruction, and you will anxiously await
my return. Years will pass, and you will have visitings of
despair, and yet be tortured by hope. Oh! my beloved sister,
the sickening failing of your heartfelt expectations is, in
prospect, more terrible to me than my own death. But you
have a husband, and lovely children; you may be happy:
Heaven bless you, and make you so!
My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest
compassion. He endeavours to fill me with hope; and talks
as if life were a possession which he valued. He reminds me
how often the same accidents have happened to other
navigators, who have attempted this sea, and, in spite of
myself, he fills me with cheerful auguries. Even the sailors
feel the power of his eloquence: when he speaks, they no
longer despair; he rouses their energies, and, while they
hear his voice, they believe these vast mountains of ice are
molehills, which will vanish before the resolutions of man.
These feelings are transitory; each day of expectation
delayed fills them with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny
caused by this despair.

September 5th.

A scene has just passed of such uncommon interest, that

although it is highly probable that these papers may never
reach you, yet I cannot forbear recording it.
We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in
imminent danger of being crushed in their conflict. The cold
is excessive, and many of my unfortunate comrades have
already found a grave amidst this scene of desolation.
Frankenstein has daily declined in health: a feverish fire still
glimmers in his eyes; but he is exhausted, and, when
suddenly roused to any exertion, he speedily sinks again
into apparent lifelessness.
I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a
mutiny. This morning, as I sat watching the wan
countenance of my friend—his eyes half closed, and his
limbs hanging listlessly—I was roused by half a dozen of the
sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin. They
entered, and their leader addressed me. He told me that he
and his companions had been chosen by the other sailors to
come in deputation to me, to make me a requisition, which,
in justice, I could not refuse. We were immured in ice, and
should probably never escape; but they feared that if, as
was possible, the ice should dissipate, and a free passage be
opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage,
and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily
have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should
engage with a solemn promise, that if the vessel should be
freed I would instantly direct my course southward.
This speech troubled me. I had not despaired; nor had I
yet conceived the idea of returning, if set free. Yet could I, in
justice, or even in possibility, refuse this demand? I
hesitated before I answered; when Frankenstein, who had at
first been silent, and, indeed, appeared hardly to have force
enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled,
and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning
towards the men, he said—
“What do you mean? What do you demand of your
captain? Are you then so easily turned from your design?
Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore
was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid
as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and
terror; because, at every new incident, your fortitude was to
be called forth, and your courage exhibited; because danger
and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and
overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an
honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as
the benefactors of your species; your names adored, as
belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour,
and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first
imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and
terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away, and are
content to be handed down as men who had not strength
enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they
were chilly, and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that
requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus
far, and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat,
merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! be men, or be more
than men. Be steady to your purposes, and firm as a rock.
This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is
mutable, and cannot withstand you, if you say that it shall
not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of
disgrace marked on your brows. Return, as heroes who have
fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn
their backs on the foe.”
He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different
feelings expressed in his speech, with an eye so full of lofty
design and heroism, that can you wonder that these men
were moved? They looked at one another, and were unable
to reply. I spoke; I told them to retire, and consider of what
had been said: that I would not lead them farther north, if
they strenuously desired the contrary; but that I hoped that,
with reflection, their courage would return.
They retired, and I turned towards my friend; but he was
sunk in languor, and almost deprived of life.
How all this will terminate, I know not; but I had rather die
than return shamefully—my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear
such will be my fate; the men, unsupported by ideas of glory
and honour, can never willingly continue to endure their
present hardships.

September 7th.

The die is cast; I have consented to return, if we are not

destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and
indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It
requires more philosophy than I possess, to bear this
injustice with patience.

September 12th.

It is past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of

utility and glory;—I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour
to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister;
and, while I am wafted towards England, and towards you, I
will not despond.
September 9th, the ice began to move, and roarings like
thunder were heard at a distance, as the islands split and
cracked in every direction. We were in the most imminent
peril; but, as we could only remain passive, my chief
attention was occupied by my unfortunate guest, whose
illness increased in such a degree, that he was entirely
confined to his bed. The ice cracked behind us, and was
driven with force towards the north; a breeze sprung from
the west, and on the 11th the passage towards the south
became perfectly free. When the sailors saw this, and that
their return to their native country was apparently assured,
a shout of tumultuous joy broke from them, loud and long-
continued. Frankenstein, who was dozing, awoke, and asked
the cause of the tumult. “They shout,” I said, “because they
will soon return to England.”
“Do you then really return?”
“Alas! yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead
them unwillingly to danger, and I must return.”
“Do so, if you will; but I will not. You may give up your
purpose, but mine is assigned to me by Heaven, and I dare
not. I am weak; but surely the spirits who assist my
vengeance will endow me with sufficient strength.” Saying
this, he endeavoured to spring from the bed, but the
exertion was too great for him; he fell back, and fainted.
It was long before he was restored; and I often thought
that life was entirely extinct. At length he opened his eyes;
he breathed with difficulty, and was unable to speak. The
surgeon gave him a composing draught, and ordered us to
leave him undisturbed. In the mean time he told me, that
my friend had certainly not many hours to live.
His sentence was pronounced; and I could only grieve, and
be patient. I sat by his bed, watching him; his eyes were
closed, and I thought he slept; but presently he called to me
in a feeble voice, and, bidding me come near, said, “Alas!
the strength I relied on is gone; I feel that I shall soon die,
and he, my enemy and persecutor, may still be in being.
Think not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I
feel that burning hatred, and ardent desire of revenge, I
once expressed; but I feel myself justified in desiring the
death of my adversary. During these last days I have been
occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it
blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a
rational creature, and was bound towards him, to assure, as
far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. This
was my duty; but there was another still paramount to that.
My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater
claims to my attention, because they included a greater
proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I
refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for
the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and
selfishness, in evil: he destroyed my friends; he devoted to
destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations,
happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know where this thirst for
vengeance may end. Miserable himself, that he may render
no other wretched, he ought to die. The task of his
destruction was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by
selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to undertake my
unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am
only induced by reason and virtue.
“Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and
friends, to fulfil this task; and now, that you are returning to
England, you will have little chance of meeting with him.
But the consideration of these points, and the well balancing
of what you may esteem your duties, I leave to you; my
judgment and ideas are already disturbed by the near
approach of death. I dare not ask you to do what I think
right, for I may still be misled by passion.
“That he should live to be an instrument of mischief
disturbs me; in other respects, this hour, when I momentarily
expect my release, is the only happy one which I have
enjoyed for several years. The forms of the beloved dead flit
before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek
happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition, even if it be
only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself
in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have
myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may
succeed.”
His voice became fainter as he spoke; and at length,
exhausted by his effort, he sunk into silence. About half an
hour afterwards he attempted again to speak, but was
unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed
forever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away
from his lips.
Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely
extinction of this glorious spirit? What can I say, that will
enable you to understand the depth of my sorrow? All that I
should express would be inadequate and feeble. My tears
flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of
disappointment. But I journey towards England, and I may
there find consolation.
I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is
midnight; the breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck
scarcely stir. Again; there is a sound as of a human voice,
but hoarser; it comes from the cabin where the remains of
Frankenstein still lie. I must arise, and examine. Good night,
my sister.

Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy
with the remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall
have the power to detail it; yet the tale which I have
recorded would be incomplete without this final and
wonderful catastrophe.
I entered the cabin, where lay the remains of my ill-fated
and admirable friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot
find words to describe; gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and
distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his
face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one
vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like
that of a mummy. When he heard the sound of my approach,
he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror, and
sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so
horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling
hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily, and endeavoured
to recollect what were my duties with regard to this
destroyer. I called on him to stay.
He paused, looking on me with wonder; and, again turning
towards the lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget
my presence, and every feature and gesture seemed
instigated by the wildest rage of some uncontrollable
passion.
“That is also my victim!” he exclaimed: “in his murder my
crimes are consummated; the miserable series of my being
is wound to its close! Oh, Frankenstein! generous and self-
devoted being! what does it avail that I now ask thee to
pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by
destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! he is cold, he cannot
answer me.”
His voice seemed suffocated; and my first impulses, which
had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request
of my friend, in destroying his enemy, were now suspended
by a mixture of curiosity and compassion. I approached this
tremendous being; I dared not again raise my eyes to his
face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his
ugliness. I attempted to speak, but the words died away on
my lips. The monster continued to utter wild and incoherent
self-reproaches. At length I gathered resolution to address
him in a pause of the tempest of his passion: “Your
repentance,” I said, “is now superfluous. If you had listened
to the voice of conscience, and heeded the stings of
remorse, before you had urged your diabolical vengeance to
this extremity, Frankenstein would yet have lived.
“And do you dream?” said the dæmon; “do you think that I
was then dead to agony and remorse?—He,” he continued,
pointing to the corpse, “he suffered not in the
consummation of the deed—oh! not the ten-thousandth
portion of the anguish that was mine during the lingering
detail of its execution. A frightful selfishness hurried me on,
while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you that
the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was
fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and,
when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not
endure the violence of the change, without torture such as
you cannot even imagine.
“After the murder of Clerval, I returned to Switzerland,
heartbroken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity
amounted to horror: I abhorred myself. But when I
discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and
of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness;
that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon
me, he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions
from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then
impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an
insatiable thirst for vengeance. I recollected my threat, and
resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was
preparing for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave,
not the master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could
not disobey. Yet when she died!—nay, then I was not
miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to
riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my
good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature
to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion
of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And
now it is ended; there is my last victim!”
I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet,
when I called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his
powers of eloquence and persuasion, and when I again cast
my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was
rekindled within me. “Wretch!” I said, “it is well that you
come here to whine over the desolation that you have made.
You throw a torch into a pile of buildings; and, when they are
consumed, you sit among the ruins, and lament the fall.
Hypocritical fiend! if he whom you mourn still lived, still
would he be the object, again would he become the prey, of
your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you feel; you
lament only because the victim of your malignity is
withdrawn from your power.”
“Oh, it is not thus—not thus,” interrupted the being; “yet
such must be the impression conveyed to you by what
appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a
fellow-feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find.
When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings
of happiness and affection with which my whole being
overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now, that
virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and
affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what
should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone,
while my sufferings shall endure: when I die, I am well
satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my
memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue,
of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet
with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love
me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of
unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and
devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the
meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no
misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over
the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am
the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with
sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the
majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel
becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and
man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a
knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But, in the
detail which he gave you of them, he could not sum up the
hours and months of misery which I endured, wasting in
impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not
satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and
craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still
spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought
the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?
Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his
door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic
who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these
are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and
the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and
kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the
recollection of this injustice.
“But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the
lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as
they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never
injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my
creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and
admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even
to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in
death. You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that
with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which
executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the
imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment
when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination
will haunt my thoughts no more.
“Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief.
My work is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man’s
death is needed to consummate the series of my being, and
accomplish that which must be done; but it requires my
own. Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this
sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice-raft which
brought me thither, and shall seek the most northern
extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile, and
consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may
afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch, who
would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall
no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the
prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who
called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very
remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no
longer see the sun or stars, or feel the winds play on my
cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this
condition must I find my happiness. Some years ago, when
the images which this world affords first opened upon me,
when I felt the cheering warmth of summer, and heard the
rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and
these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my
only consolation. Polluted by crimes, and torn by the
bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
“Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of human kind
whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If
thou wert yet alive, and yet cherished a desire of revenge
against me, it would be better satiated in my life than in my
destruction. But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction,
that I might not cause greater wretchedness; and if yet, in
some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think
and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance
greater than that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my
agony was still superior to thine; for the bitter sting of
remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death
shall close them forever.
“But soon,” he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I
shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these
burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral
pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing
flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my
ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will
sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus.
Farewell.”
He sprung from the cabin-window, as he said this, upon
the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne
away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.
 ENDNOTES

1. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. ↩

2. The moon. ↩

3. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey. ↩

 Frankenstein
was published in 1818 by
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY.

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